Singularities
by Dealice
Summary: Rock n' roll nights, drunken flights, friends' fights and neon lights. What a ledge! Yamato would be more than happy to continue plowing through this glorious quagmire called life, along with the rest of the Chosen Children, without telling Taichi how he... without telling him all sorts. But it's August, when everything begins.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Wicked Game

It was bloody fucking hot, that's what it was.

Long roads of asphalt shimmered under the parching sun and formed the mirage of a melting world. Angry tongues of celestial plasma were lashing out against his skin and raiding the insides of his pores. _'great.'_

The temperature shown on the thermometer was'are–you–bloody–joking?!' and the object was about to pop like Sid Vicious on cocaine. _'Bloody Terrific.'_

Like hell will Yamato miss a match, though. Especially for such a bogus reason. He slapped on the densest sunblock the pharmacy had on sale and parked his posterior in his favourite seat. Namely – the very front, yet somewhat secluded section, of the stands.

The spot was rimmed by a fence tall enough for him to rest his elbows on, and always had some water company's sponsor advert – or whatever – dangling from it. From here, he had a perfect view of everything happening on the field. And more importantly, a perfect view of everybody on the field.

And even more importantly – of every _body_ on it.

It's not that he was such a huge football fan or anything. Sure, when Yamato _played_ , it was the shit. He'd let Taichi drag him out on some weekends to score some goals. But, altogether, watching twenty-two ugly mugs chasing down a ball like dogs while passing it around like pigeon-shit-related diseases was mostly boring – at least in regards to the game itself.

No, his reasons for challenging the wrath of summer's burning afternoon involved the aforementioned.

There are some things two people simply can't go through together without becoming as close as friends can get without being surgically attached. Saving worlds, adventuring, sleeping the bare minimum of CM apart, taking shits next to each other, and limping home bloody together while scaring old people along the way tended to be a few of those things.

Plus, Sora will be making her debut as a goalie after not having played in a competitive match for about – ' _what? Nine years? Maybe eight if luck is on her side?'_ Yamato thought, trying to do the maths.

Maybe it was a one-time gig and she wouldn't have been here if she hadn't lost that bet to Taichi all those months ago – ' _which kinda meant luck is not on her side, no?'_ – but she was determined to keep her word.

Ergo, showing support was a must and Yamato would sit right here and share his personal space with football hooligans: a bunch of blokes who smelt about as good as an eviscerated road-kill did after an unfortunate encounter with a zoo-necrophiliac. Only these casuals were louder and had firms that'd smash your legs into smithereens mid some aggro, if they didn't like your face.

' _What was it about anyway?'_ Yamato rolled the small titanium pole piercing his tongue around in his mouth. Once, then twice . It tasted of metal; the iron inside blood. A good taste. ' _Something idiotic. It's always something idiotic.'_

His other motives were of a much less innocent and much baser nature. Hence, his favourite sitting spot. The ad there managed to cover him from the waist down. He could grind himself against a strategically placed metal pole and stay inconspicuous while ogling the busybodies on the field and getting himself off. And undressing some of them with the miraculous power of imagination.

Yamato fought his facial muscles to stop his depraved stream of thought from showing. Really, just being here had addled his brain. As though he turned on a television in his head and it was set on the adult channel, replacing whatever he was seeing with a movie screen playing 'The Giant Penis That Invaded New York.'

And in case a random yob out there was peeing himself – no, Yamato didn't have some prejudice against boobs. Or against any other organs exclusive to the female anatomy for that matter. Vaginas were all right. They were cute. It's just that on match days he most definitely _came_ for the cocks, dicks, todgers, huis, shafts, poles, members, instruments of mass insemination, tools of ass destruction – and whatever other witty analogies existed to describe what was, essentially, a penis. Call it a preference.

Yup, he could recite the entire scene from Four Rooms right about now – the one where the woman was tied to a chair 'cause she and her husband were kinky that way.

The sharp blow of a whistle pierced through the air and the players were taking the field. Woohoo!

One after the other, muscular, athletic blokes shuffled into the grass with those sinfully small shorts and knee-high socks, waving to the audience.

Then, finally, Taichi, the proud captain of the team and the ace striker, joined in with the rest of the players and Sora in tow.

Brown eyes darted to the place where Taichi expected to see the golden-sunset shine of messy, silken hair.

Sure enough, he met a poignant stare and a distinct smile meant for him only. Few things touched Taichi the way it did.

Taichi always thought Yamato had a nice smile and that he should show more of it, but he'd never tell him that. That bastard was a bit shyer than he initially let on and this shyness often translated to aggression which turned into 'what can't be solved with violence, can be solved with great deal o' violence' and someone got kicked in the yarbles.

Taichi grinned, flashing a row of pearly-whites which had the capacity to blind a blind person further.

No exaggerations intended, but Taichi had a smile so bright it could tempt sunshine to come out of the clouds during a monsoon. Yamato was putty.

The pixie-faced captain raised his fist Yamato's way, shaped into the devil horns, before checking around to see who else arrived.

Once satisfied, he turned to Sora, gave her a long, supportive squeeze on the shoulder and pointed in Yamato's direction.

The friendly presence seemed to buy her confidence back and lift her mood some. She waved at Yamato as she approached the net she was supposed to guard.

And the match was on!

While everyone was keeping score and cheering for their respective teams, Yamato's concentration wandered between the players themselves. More specifically – the extent of his gaze narrowed down to the zone of their crotches for some basket shopping. Those stiff bulges, sweaty, steamy and warm, doused with that particular scent of everything Man.

He squirmed in his seat. His sweat, mingled with the first renegade drops of his happy, viscous fluid, was amounting to a wet, though not entirely unpleasant, experience.

And then there was Taichi – a true, prime specimen, blissfully unaware of any of Yamato's perversions, aimed at him or otherwise. He was effortlessly sexy; tight cords of rough flesh sheathed in a sun-kissed skin of molten coffee. Taichi was running now, panting from the exertion, and charisma poured out of every orifice in his body.

For future reference, what Yamato should consider is visiting the team's practises. Then he'll get to see them doing _stretches._ Maybe even watch Taichi's shorts ride up into the paler sections of his thighs during a split. Yes, Taichi was bendy. Yamato could suggest giving Taichi a ride home and revel in the gentle fragrance Mr. Football Star emitted when he was fresh from the shower. The one his sweaty, naked, _shiny_ self takes, with a few other well fit blokes, after he's done looking like a babe on the field.

With the lack of handy Blistex, Yamato swapped his tongue over his lips, using spit as grease against the dryness in his mouth. How will it be like to have Taichi pant for utterly different reasons?

It was a fantasy Yamato entertained a little. No, scratch that – _a lot_. He entertained it _a lot_. To have that godly body, slick with sweat, pressed against him from behind, hands running over bare skin and teeth nipping, buried in him, stroking him from the inside and filling him up.

Yamato sighed, letting off steam. He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment the concept of fucking his best friend had become... well… a thing.

He saw Taichi grow from a pushy, bratty kid who played 'follow the leader' into the real thing and, in turn, into a poised, intelligent and confident man, who was as easy to smile as he was easy to get all hot-blooded. The kind of man who commanded the attention and affection of every person he met along the way with his radiating cheer, which was _absolutely_ charming, and a huge, kind heart. He saw Taichi, no matter how many times Yamato yelled at him, ignored him or took a hard one at his face without pulling the blow, come back to him.

As far as Yamato could tell, the seed of the idea had probably _almost_ always been there and simply, organically, blossomed into fruition along with his genitals.

Who knows? Maybe it was because he and Taichi spent such a long time together under intense conditions. Maybe it was how they were forced to open up to each other or polish their communication skills. And maybe, just maybe, all those fights they used to have were an excuse to touch each other in ways which were simply unacceptable on any other terms.

When it comes down to it, hormones are brainless proteins, peptides, and steroids which disregard the nuances of the actual situation. They don't know if you're all hot and bothered because you're livid over someone who's utterly in your face, and are about to punch them silly to get them off of you during a fight, or if it's because said someone's body is warm and close and is pinning you to the ground.

They don't know where all that frustration is from. Yamato didn't know either. After he hit puberty, _they_ hit him. And they hit _hard._ Then all the lines connected and he figured it out.

It can't be fixed, but he can't resist.

Not that he ever talked about it – fuck no! Not even with Gabumon. The moment Yamato blabbed about it and it got in _anyone_ else's head, he won't be allowed to ignore it. It would become a real thing and if it became a real thing, he'd have to confront t. It was all Descartes-like and a headache.

Yeah, it killed him just a bit more every day to murder these – Needs? Urges? _Emotions_? – and inhume them where no one could find them. Keeping Taichi out of it was worse.

At some point, Yamato started sharing whole pieces of his life with Taichi. Yamato thought Taichi tried doing the same. Or he hoped.

The initiative was Taichi's. Two years ago he wouldn't shut his maw about it: that he and Yamato'd really talk about what was happening in their lives. Silly, seemingly meaningless things too. Just to talk to each other as much as they can. The concept was that if they were put against a crisis or another war again, they would know how to better react to each other. There were other incentives: they could be together more; it was less lonely. They won't "fight wars alone" – that's what Taichi had said. So Yamato'd expected Taichi to get royally pissed off at him for _not_ telling Taichi how much he wanted him.

It was never _intended_ to be some big fucking secret and Yamato sure as fuck didn't _want_ it to be one. Who needs this shit, right? Yamato wanted to tell him, and made practical plans around telling him, but then he just… didn't.

But such is life. Boo-motherfucking-hoo. So what? Better people than him had worse problems in the world.

And why didn't he flat out tell Taichi if he was such an incredible and understanding friend? Because it would have been bloody stupid – that's why!

Yamato spent some good few years, after returning from the Digital World, convincing himself he was having a phase of pre-pubescent hormonal bouts. By the time that theory finally crashed and he was ready to tell Taichi, Taichi was already busy hooking up with the best samples the opposite sex had to offer, and _only_ those, while affirming his heterosexuality. Affirming it over and over and over _and over_ again.

So why should Yamato bother? His mummy didn't feed him Idiot breastmilk when he popped into the world.

Yeah, at first it hurt about as much as one could expect of the nasty blend between emotional cock-blocking and sexual frustration studded lavishly with guilt. But the real dick there was that, in some place… in some place it hurt so bloody much because Taichi was _not_ some "ladies man". He was nothing, _nothing_ like that _._ Taichi… Taichi was in a different place than most people. He did things for his own Yamato's friendship with Taichi was the only thing that mattered to Yamato. So all the shite feeling? Yamato got used to it – employing the repression skills he learned during his parents' divorce.

The pain ebbed into the background of his mind till it faded into yet another one of those flat notes belonging to the soundtrack of a person's life.

Still, even now, even after everything – and maybe because of it – there is not a single nucleic acid in Taichi's DNA Yamato will ever want to change. Taichi was like no one else.

Sure, business got ugly sometimes, and Yamato would take the credit for being the instigator for a good 95% of those incidents. There was something about Taichi that used to irk Yamato so bad it gave him an itch and they pissed each other off like only few others could. They almost beat the living shit out of one another once and exchanged every single insult the darkest corners of the Internet had to offer sans swears which included the other's mother.

Usually they bridged their differences and sometimes they didn't. Thing is, when you fight someone you get to learn everything there is to know about each other sooner or later. There are magnitudes of mutual respect to gain from that.

He and Taichi were the polar ends of a magnet, and Newton's Third in manifest. Side by side, they were unbeatable. Can't beat the laws of physics, right?

Best friend, brother in arms – blud. No-one, _no-one_ other than Gabumon, contained him the way Taichi did. Yamato had good friends who he cherished, a brother who meant the world to him, and parents he thankfully got along with at the end of the day. But he didn't find words for the feelings he had. They were too amorphous. Nothing else he knew could compare. As a musician who wrote his own lyrics, that was a big, frustrating sore in his arse.

He _wanted_ Taichi in the physical sense, but at the same time – that wasn't the end he _cared_ about the most. They were so close. Their unconventional friendship, the intimate relationship they forged for themselves in it, was a bond they hadn't recreated with anyone else. For Yamato, that casual intimacy they shared, and the natural way they carried it for so many years, and through so many battles under such extraordinary circumstances, had made the borders which were usually used to divide relationships into types melt away. Melt into either secondary or plainly irrelevant concepts. His feelings were not romantic or sexual or familial or even singularly friendly. They were, but they also weren't. He just loved him, unconditionally, _somehow._ Somehow which was entirely their own.

That was just how they were connected to one another. Not everything has to be defined; some things have a right to exist all by themselves.

Otherwise, Yamato was not too selective about the trivialities of gender or sex. As far as he was concerned, he cared for what was between a person's ears rather than what was between their legs.

Which is where his problems started – most people had nothing between their ears. So, contrary to popular belief, he was _not_ humping everything that moved like some slaphappy rabbit.

Although he wasn't a prude or anything either. There were _many_ people.

Yamato saw the back seats of many cars, went down on all fours beneath many desks, pleased behind many stages, and visited more by-the-hour motels than he cared to remember. The gym's-shower-rooms epiphanies he had at thirteen because of Taichi – he lived them out in a world of black coffee, cigarettes and random sex. And he didn't have to be attracted to anyone or even like them. They served a purpose, just like he did. They weren't that good, but he fucked them anyway. Then everyone went their separate ways. Was he proud of any of that? Barely. Sometimes, though, that's just how life ends up being.

He didn't care much for labels either. If anybody asked, he liked to think he'd reply that both he and his libido were liberal with their tastes, and that his sexual deviance had no filters. Straight, gay, bi, _whatever_ – at the end of the day, those were just a tiny part of a bigger, meaner family of labels. Labels that _some_ people hung on other people because, god forbid, they would otherwise have to deal with the unquantifiable complexities of the human psyche and the huge grey area that it is.

Those were right wankstains who were so simplistic in the attic area that they couldn't do any mathematics which involved fraction arithmetic above the minimum required for primary school. Or compose sentences more sophisticated than bumper sticker slogans, for that matter.

Lower yet on the evolutionary scale, were those who took it up to eleven and divided the planet into a dichotomous, binary system. Yes, no, black, white. Not much of a say, is it?

Heuristics can be such a screwed up mechanism in the hands of right twonks.

What really got to Yamato, though, was how, in time, the labels were adopted by the victims. Those who received them often tried to mould themselves to fit the trope's stereotypes, like cookie dough in a sheet pan, or pieces from a factory. Now humanity is stuck with an overabundance of leftovers from the assembly line that wasted away in junkyards and polluted the scene. Worse – they were all so repetitively boring.

It's not like he wasn't aware of social stigmas – he was a member of planet Earth and everything, but even his parents didn't give a flying dog dung. Not that they had the time to. So, as long as his grades were up and the police didn't show up at their doorstep, he was free, by his father's account, to glue his furniture to the ceiling while choreographing ballet routines between the rooms to Tiny Tim's 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips'.

So, for him, sexual prejudice was something which always belonged with nosey parkers that had serious insecurities regarding their own dicks – many of whom loved the cock themselves and couldn't own up to it. Them, and with holier-than-thou preachers on the telly who were spreading their poison along. Exactly the sort of individuals Yamato honestly had to ask – "if there is a monotheistic god and it is so butt-hurt over men shagging each other through anal penetration, than why did it put our G-spot up our arses?"

Hell, he could phrase it scientifically – what is the correlation between a proposed deity being _butt-hurt_ and the existence of the prostate in its current location?

Yamato reckoned they imported it from the western belief system, sometime during the Meiji era. Why – he'd never know. Samurais were heavy into the pederasty department and in Japanese history, neither Shinto nor Buddhism were ever actively averse to some man-on-man action. Half of Shinto is based on one huge orgy anyhow.

Besides, it's been in his experience that most homophobes were such dicks because they were afraid to be treated the same way _they_ treated women.

That was some serious Lord of the Flies psycho-bullshit right there.

Nobody, bar an evolutionary anthropologist, should care about _Homo sapiens_ screwing other _Homo sapiens_. Unless their priorities were somehow seriously down-side-up, most people should have better things to do, mind their own business, and let everyone else fuck in peace. And, if fucking isn't a hobby of interest for certain parties, said parties should be free to lead their fuck-less lives without being gawked at like freaks, or worse – like pandas in zoos.

As for those aforementioned fuckers and strangers who didn't know him – why should he be arsed about them? Yamato said it how it is and just always sort of figured that people who were gagging for approval from others so badly probably didn't approve of themselves enough. He didn't have time to get invested in the opinions of the intellectually impaired.

Actually, the truth no one likes admitting is that nobody knows no one. They just want to pretend they do, when the fact is that there is often a substantial gap between what people think and what the rest of the world gets to see of that. 'No man is an island'? Rubbish. Humans would drown in the ocean that's each other's sorrows if they weren't. It's either keeping your filters up or meeting the twisted side of humanity – or whatever else somebody doesn't want to see.

Yamato was fine with it, though. It was alright when no one tried too hard to get to know him. Gave him the sense of privacy he needed plenty of. If his one-night-stands saw him as this distant, unattainable object, a beauty to desire, use, and dispose of – whatever. Let random whoevers across the street decide Yamato was some social-anxiety-ridden introvert, just 'cause he kept to himself. It didn't matter any. But maybe Yamato was being a moneyed arse who let the piss go to his head because he was privileged. He had Gabumon, Taichi, Takeru, his band, and the Chosen Children.

They were the ones that mattered.

Everyone else can mount it.

Fuck, he didn't want his mind to go there now. It just depressed him. He didn't feel like getting all irked and riled and the sun was being cruel enough.

Instead, he chose the well-worn path of meditating about Donita Sparks'teaching. The woman was a saint in black eyeliner, shredded articles of clothing, and guitar straps who handed free, disjointed lifestyle advice to potential hazards to society such as himself. Appropriately, he hummed L7's 'Shitlist' with the occasional words becoming audible on his lips every other line. It's not like he was bothering anyone – no one here heard anything anyway.

He wasn't actually that bitter on most days. He really wasn't. Considering the alternatives, Yamato was chuffed to bits with his lot in life. Weather was being bloody awful today, though, and he had way too much free time to master the act of ranting and elevate it into a form of art. Art which may inspire lyrics. Lyrics which would be assimilated into notes at two in the morning along with the howls of jackals. Notes which composed music. And music is beautiful. Music was something Yamato could be passionate about. Like a scream, only without screaming.

It was half-time, and the team members regrouped right next to where Yamato was sitting, huddling around their coaches to talk strategy and boost morale. Taichi's team was leading two to four but there was plenty of time to close that gap yet.

At this point, it was so hot the entire arena was suffused with multifaceted sweat smells and the deodorants of everyone present.

And then Yamato's entire span of attention was diminished to contain a single, defining moment: _'Off! Off with it!' –_ Taichi was taking off his shirt.

The whole process probably didn't last more than a few seconds, but for Yamato it was a slow motion picture: fingers hooking into the folds of his top which clang to the wet, unyielding physique. Blue fabric sliding over tan skin as Taichi lifted it over his shoulders, exposing a lithe figure and well-sculpted abs which glistened under the thick sheen of sweat. And, finally, that magnificent trail of hair, extending from Taichi's navel all the way down beneath the waistline of his shorts – a suggestion of the hidden treasure underneath that's tempting like the foreplay before the act.

' _Fuck.'_

It was a good thing Taichi was so immersed in the match. He'd have been mighty perplexed by the glazed over situation going on through Yamato's face, and his impressively dilated pupils.

' _He'd think I'm dropping acid or something,'_ but ' _damn,_ _he's fit!_ '

Well, of course he's bloody fit. Taichi's an accredited athlete. It was just that Yamato hadn't seen him quite so exposed in this particular way for a very long time: the golden triangle of wet, bare-chested and wearing tiny shorts that showed his long and sexy legs. Bonus points for all the physical labour Taichi was pulling; it really maximized the effect of all those bronzed muscles.

They had been taking so-called "showers" together for a while in the Digital World, seeing as the fabled Roman bath houses weren't exactly lining up for the gig. Also, neither wanted to be alone when MetalSeadramon swam nearby, trying to bite their regal rumps off. The habit persisted into the real world for a while – in summer camp or the swimming pool's changing rooms.

At least until their testes plopped out and erections became a thing.

Yamato still walked around shamelessly in the men's changing room. The whole thing was so bloody stupid. Unless someone pulled the entire Monty Python cast out of his pantless self, Yamato was not about to see anything he hadn't seen a billion times before. And if anyone fancied taking a looksee at his backside while he was bent over, more power to them.

Taichi, on the other hand, got surprisingly shy on the subject over the years. The sexy, "courageous leader" was sorely missed, but Yamato didn't fancy beign the sort of large-diameter-dickhole who puts peer pressure on others due to being too insecure to manage his shit on his own.

' _Not again, that is,'_ with a pang of guilt, the incident with Jyou in Devimon's mansion flashed in Yamato's mind. And the Chosen Children's favourite Doctor was so fucking graceful when Yamato apologised to him, no less – despite the four year delay.

There was also that visit to the hot springs a few years back, but Yamato was too damn ticked at the time to enjoy the yummy treat that a shirtless, humid Taichi can be.

' _And those muscles became so much more defined since then!'_

It's not exactly that Yamato's life had been devoid of Taichi's naked arse. They were mates and all and Taichi was practically a resident of Yamato's flat. Was his favourite go-to to vegetate. Every now and then, Yamato accidently walked in on Taichi while the latter was getting in or out of clothes, and sneaked himself a peek.

This _– now –_ was a top-notch show, the likes of which Yamato hadn't been privy to in forever. The pressure on the stiffy he had been growing for the last hour became overwhelming. If he wouldn't release soon he'd spontaneously combust and become a case study for Bruce Dickinson's sequel documentary.

Yamato slumped all the way back into his seat and ground against the piece of rigid metal. His mind drifted away, into situations he can't experience in real life…

 _Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" was fading in and out of the background like a defective record._

" _Strip," Taichi commanded - his voice raspy with frustration and barely contained arousal. Vocabulary was far beyond his reach. He didn't have to be verbal, though, and he knew it. One look, and Yamato will be on his back, legs in the air._

 _Yamato_ _obeyed, but before most of his belongings hit the floor, Taichi grabbed his shoulders and forced him down. All the way to the floor till Yamato_ _was kneeling in front of the raging hard-on constricted behind Taichi's jeans._

 _One firm hand tunnelled through the fine, platinum hair, shoving Yamato's pretty face between Taichi's spread knees. Taichi was not subtle at all about getting what he wanted._

 _Yamato_ _glanced upwards, giving his partner his best doe-eyes._

 _Taichi looked at him impatiently, watching Yamato reach for the zip and pull it down, agonisingly slow like the tease that bastard was. He did it with his teeth - as though it was the last of the cheesiest pornographic fantasies._

 _Taichi couldn't look away even if a bomb hit the house; his little sex bunny was just too damn cute. The way Yamato_ _looked when he pulled out his member, like he was anticipating a treat – massaging and pumping it with that slender hand of his, was slutty and sweet._

 _Shit, Yamato was far too good at this. Taichi was losing it and he had other, better ideas in mind. He locked his fingers on the back of Yamato's head and jerked him into his pulsing cock, poking the dark crown into Yamato's white cheek. Momentarily enjoying the contrast of skins and the humiliating act._

" _Take it to your throat."_

 _Yamato_ _grinned at the cock-flesh spanking his cheek and_ _didn't dare disobeying. He wrapped his lips around the sizable girth, somewhat straining his mouth to fit the whole thing in. It hurt his jaw a bit._

 _He didn't move his eyes from the brown ones for a single moment. They were gorgeous, looking at him like that, and he loved them so much when they were pleased._

 _And he will love them when he'll hear Taichi give that last, guttural groan and his dick will jerk in Yamato's mouth. He will love to sit up and take Taichi's entire load all over his face. Or however Taichi would make him take it._

 _Yamato_ _just wanted Taichi's throbbing knob moving in and out of him, and he wasn't picky about which of his holes was being used for that end. The only thing that mattered was opening Yamato_ _up and making him take it hard and deep in there._

 _He started at a slow, seductive pace, disciplining the tempo of his suction, intending to taunt Taichi until he lost his mind._

 _Yamato was basking in the dirty smell of sweat on Taichi's balls and the salty taste of his shaft, mixed with the first few drops of pre-cum that leaked onto his tongue._

 _Almost immediately, he was granted a deep growl of reckless lust – confirmation of his good behaviour._

 _Taichi loved those shameful lips. They were so lovely – all glassy, wet, and red from stretching to their limits to fit all of him inside._

 _Soon enough Taichi was going crazy. He needed more and he needed it now – thoughts of consequences out of the window. He interlaced the fingers of both of his hands into the blonde tresses, holding Yamato in place while he ruthlessly fucked his small mouth._

" _Fuck!"_

 _He was pushing himself deeper and deeper and deeper into that warm, moist hole, burying himself inside the quivering throat, heedless of the desperate choking and gurgling sounds emerging from beneath him. The vibrations were sending Taichi over the edge and he couldn't contain himself "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!..."_

Yamato's orgasm hit him the exact moment the dominant daydream version of Taichi did.

"Fuck…" he finished, and remained with his eyes shut for a wee bit longer, gently coming down from his climax and back into the match where the real Taichi was running around.

If he found out about the sort of fantasies Yamato was wanking to, Taichi would have been furious. And disgusted. Not because he was the leading star of Yamato's internal porn-industry. Nope – the git will probably be flattered to bits by being wet dream material. It was because Yamato made him out to be a real bastard.

Though Yamato supposed it was _he_ who should be disgusted with himself; why did he fantasise about being objectified and handled so crudely? He was one twisted fuck.

' _No shit.'_

But Yamato wasn't through yet.

He bent over, folding so that the buttons of his skinnies pressed too much on the metal barbell of his belly-button's piercing.

It was painful; just the right amount of pain.

And if he put on a bit more pressure, just a tiny bit more, maybe his skin would rip that little bit. A tiny tear in the otherwise unblemished white of his skin and dark red drops will come flowing through.

Just one will do, though.

Just one and he will have that blessed release he craved.

The one he needed.

He should be careful, though – he promised Taichi not to overdo it. The last thing he wanted was discriminating evidence all over his briefs and shirt. Taichi'd go berserk with worry and do circles around Yamato like an angsty mother hen.

' _I should get a new ring_ ,'he figured ' _I want a new hole in my body and something hard to fill it with.'_ He amused no one but himself and sniggered at his own lame joke.

Currently he was weighing his options. His was a bit on the fence between a Prince Albert and a Guiche while leaning towards the latter.

He should do it today. He should call up Victor right after the match; see if the mountain sized ink-master had already opened the parlour.

The whistle signalling the end of the match resonated through the arena. The crowds wearing blue and waving the similarly coloured flags of their team were ecstatic with the cheers of victory, chanting Taichi's and Sora's names and singing Queen's 'We Are the Champions'.

Apparently, during the elapsed time Yamato spent in his sexual dream world, Sora prevented the rivalling captain from scoring two goals against them. Meanwhile, Taichi, per tradition, passed the ball to one of his mates and let the bloke hit the winning one against the opposite team.

The implications of this glorious achievement were that they won 5-2 in a blindin' performance and were automatically moving on to university's league nationals!

Taichi was running up the field, his hands stretched sideways like the wings of a dragon. There were drug-worthy levels of ecstasy slapped on his face while he was jumping up and down, with copious amounts of energy bursting from his body with the force of a jet engine.

Yamato instinctively imitated the joyous expression. He wanted to remember Taichi just like that for the rest of his life; with that natural enthusiasm. To carve that image into Yamato's chest with a scalpel, and be warmed by it on cold days.

Taichi crashed into Sora, embracing her so hard he was one step away from mashing her ribs – first into her kidneys and then into thin dust – before he continued to run around his team mates, venting his hyperactivity and shouting incomprehensibly. You'd think his arse was on fire.

As soon as Yamato got down to the field to deliver his own congratulations, he was pulled into a bone-crushing hug of his own and temporarily lost the ability to exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen.

Not because Taichi knocked out the air from his lungs. Nope – not anything silly like that. T'was because a warm, half-naked, wet Taichi was clinging to him. If Yamato closed his eyes, he could pretend that they were in the middle of a hot banging session.

Utterly oblivious to how he should respond to the taut and worked-out muscles he was cocooned in, Yamato mechanically placed his palms on Taichi's slick waist and interacted with it as little as he could. The rest of his effort was put into preventing his heart from flying straight out of his arse.

It was amazing how close Yamato's parted lips were to the salty indentation at the base of Taichi's throat, and yet so frustratingly – endlessly far. Yamato could smell him. It was all sweat and armpits. That's how Taichi would smell after sex. It was lovely.

It was a brilliant thing Yamato'd already got himself off earlier. Otherwise, Taichi would have discovered Yamato's pride and joy poking his inner thigh. That would have just caused a delicate situation all around.

Or not – it's Taichi, after all. He'll call Yamato a bending queer, he'll be decked; they'll laugh it off. Good times will ensue.

As far as Yamato was concerned, he was alone with Taichi in the universe. No dirty looks or wondering expressions aimed at them. No eyes upon his scars. Unfortunately, reality was an exquisite, rotten bitch which had to interfere, and they parted.

Sora smiled behind Taichi's back and Yamato nodded her way.

"Alright?"

"I-"

"Brilliant, man! We're on fire!" Taichi shrilled, answering on her behalf. Sora laughed, brimming with elation as much as any of her single-use football team mates.

"Sure as shit we are!" she said, uncharacteristically foul-mouthed – probably infected with the buckets-full worth of testosterone being exuded all over the place. "Guess I missed this more than I should, huh?"

Hands shoved into his pockets, Yamato quirked his lips into a fond half-smile without much to say.

A swarm of fans, friends, and family members rushed its way over like a horde of hungry wildebeests. They shoved and smashed into each other to join the victors in a celebration which will most likely evolve into a booze-ridden carnival.

It will be grand. People will get on the piss in instalments and the face-planting will reach impressive acrobatic levels.

Since Yamato didn't fancy rubbing against stinkin' strangers all day – he decided this was a good a time as any to make as a tree and fuck off.

"My place tomorrow?"

Both Taichi and Sora nodded, with the latter adding two thumbs up before being swallowed up by the loud masses.

Withdrawing from the tightness of the throng, Yamato made his way to the catwalks above the stands where he hoped to have at least enough quiet to hear his own voice while he dialled the number for the tattoo parlour owner.

After three consecutive signal rings, Yamato grinned at the burly baritone rumbling on the other end of the line.

"What?" Victor grumped

"When are you opening?"

Yamato didn't care for the pleasantries of beating around the bush and neither did the big man. It's not like either one of them wanted to listen to what kind of day the other has had, or how shite life was in general on the other's side; pretty much the standard human interaction in a nutshell – only without using the hypocritical civility of cold empathy. What's the point of 'how do you do?' when most people just tune out mid answer to think about other things or bide their time till it's their turn to talk about themselves? Besides, Victor had a strict no-BS policy with which Yamato was good at co-operating.

"Six PM – ink?"

"New metal," Yamato corrected.

"Good. Fucking hate your skin."

"I can make it in an hour. Will you actually be there on _five_?"

The question was moot, of course. Victor did whatever Victor wanted to, and that included being over thirty minute late to meet a client because the man needed his dose of muddy black coffee.

He owned the place and there was no one in the entire world, save for maybe Ozzy Osborne himself, to tell the big fella' what to do with it.

"Sod off, yob."

Victor hung up, leaving Yamato humming the main guitar riff for Sabbath's 'Iron Man' to the beat of the beeps while wiping his cooling underarm sweat stain over himself.

Ah, that was rank! Yamato was sweating in places which were _not_ eligible locations for sweat glands to exist in. ' _Shower! So badly!'_

This was going to be a hot summer, but somehow Yamato was pleasantly taken back to that fateful one. The one which started very much the same way nine years ago – when everything changed. It was swollen with potential for things to come.

' _Who knows what might happen on days like these.'_

When he moved to retrace his steps and head for the exit, a familiar scene caught his attention.

' _Well, looky looky here.'_

Not far from Yamato's favourite spot was Taichi, still marvellously starkers from the waist up, being boldly flirted with by a brunette girl, who was testing the waters before making her move and diving straight in. She was almost as cute as Taichi was.


	2. Chapter 2

h2 style="margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 2: Shiny, Happy People /span/h2  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"That's how things unfurled after every match, no exceptions: some girl will come along and ask Taichi style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"They were all magazine-pretty. The variety that was perfectly aware of just how pretty they were – probably in some attempt to act out the niche of supermodel-football star couple stereotype. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"And Taichi never refused. He always said yes – not a bit selective. He was a real butterfly./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"If anything, it has become a rare occasion em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"not /emseeing him em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"constantly/em surrounded by people – with lovely femmes being the majority of that demographic. And Yamato didn't blame any single one of them. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Everyone went crazy for those deep and dark eyes and would drop everything they were doing just to be near him. They'd be drawn in helplessly, look up to him and want to be just like him. Or be his future-baby's mama./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Was Yamato jealous? Maybe once, a long time ago, when he had only realised the extent of his sexuality – which was about the same time Taichi realised he had a knob he could fit into holes. But no surprise there, so what's the point in sulking 'bout it? /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Besides, Taichi went to those girls to get off, but he came to Yamato for everything else. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Nothing more serious than a one-time fling with the 'Girl of the Week' ever occurred anyway – hence the title./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It's not like Taichi was some testosterone-intoxicated Casanova who scratched notches on his bedside for every girl he shagged. He wasn't into marking his territory in some tasteless display of Alpha-male hogwash. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"If he were, Yamato would have already punctured one of his lungs and made sure Taichi would have been as flat as a whoopee cushion, and restricted to making the same sound effects. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"No, it was nothing like that. Taichi didn't initiate sexual situations, didn't drink too much, and didn't let the other party drink too much. And, he was still so awkward about dating and being approached. You'd think he'd get used to it, but he didn't. He just didn't bother stopping the revolving door of dates either. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Those who went along with his rigorous set of rules often did it for the pleasure of kiss-and-tell afterwards. They were dying to brag about dating the drop-dead-gorgeous, crazy-charismatic captain of the football team. Or because they naively thought they could be that 'One, Special Girl' in his life./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Tough tits, ladies – that's his sister's job.'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It was fair trade all around seeing as the date often ended with Mr. Football Star having his cock sucked in some random alley. Once upon a time, he used to allow them to ride it too, but that bugger literally got too lazy for that./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'And that's a first-world problem if I've ever heard of one.'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato never asked Taichi about his hollow routine; never inquired about the futility of the act. The sentence: "Why do you bother dating them if you can't be buggered to memorise their names?!" has never so much as left his lips. It needn't have to./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He didn't need to ask anything./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He knew./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"All too well./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Without knowing, Taichi was searching; groping for someone without a face or something of undefined nature to fill the empty spaces in him and alleviate the loneliness. Even for just a little while. Just something, or someone, to prove he is real, that he exists, that he has a meaning – simply by being there and acknowledgeing him, while allowing him escapism. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"However, despite his willingness to share many sweaty enterprises, he hadn't let any of them get close to him. Not the way he needed. Sex was the next best thing. Made him feel like he thought he wanted to feel. Until it was over. What was left was emptiness, again, and the dire need to refill it. Until it was style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"No, it wasn't loneliness exactly. Wrong word. It was the rudimentary sense of losing something which you had never had, or missing someone you had never known. And then of being left to your own devices to work out what the hell you're supposed to do with all that. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi was desperately seeking someone who will take him in with the entirety of who he was. No prejudice, no juridical remarks, no names – only acceptance. Without expecting his unique condition to miraculously work itself out till he fit the picture like the other pieces of the jigsaw puzzle which formed the non-digital world. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"To just… be. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"And anything will do. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He wasn't the only one, either. No one was left unscathed. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"All the Chosen Children harboured that nameless notion; the seed from which dark flowers bloom in sporadic corners, ever-deepening every day since they parted with the Digital World for the first time. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"At first, Yamato thought there was nothing to it – it was natural to be missing the friends they had left behind, as well as having a hard time adjusting to the simple and mundane habits of school life. They had been playing heroes for so, em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"so/em long. Maybe they thought they could forever travel between the worlds and stay beside their friend Digimons. Huh. What a shock it was when that didn't happen./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"As they grew older and the extent of what they gained, what they lost, and the consequences of their actions became apparent, the germinating emotional baggage took root and broke through the surface. Like those renegade weeds which burst through the cement of otherwise pristine pavements and staircases, leaving one to wonder: first, how the hell did they get there to begin with? And, second, how come, in the name of all things putrid and unholy, was there still life beneath all that stone and plaster?/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"This is a limbo. Yamato was fishing for the right words to describe the unique array of their predicaments. What he came up with was the lexicon ingrained into him during the obligatory calculus class he took in his first semester at the university./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Singularities!/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"They were the singularities of a complex mathematical function. The points where it became undefined and could no longer be well-behaved, wreaking the otherwise homogeneous curve of everyone else's reality. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The little creases which twisted the painting. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"For the most part, they went about their business in a way expected from ordinary, young adults. But they didn't quite fit in. Something was always … off. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"All that ordinariness was just off after having been thrust amidst chaos for as long as they were./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Now, everything seemed like a distorted version of itself. Much like Taichi, everyone was the mismatched pieces of a puzzle. Pieces which were lumped together by force instead of fitting around that one, missing fragment meant to bridge the picture properly. Just because they sort of, kind of, almost blended into the paint in such a way that onlookers won't notice something was wrong. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Even when the general sense of wrongness pervaded the scene. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Because the puzzle won't be whole. It will forever be missing pieces and incomplete. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Or maybe they were like moons in orbit; they were there, part of the system but not part of the life on the planet. Like this world was not for them, and still the only thing they had./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Nowadays, their dysfunctions were in the little things. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"In the way they jolted when a train entered the station – it's screeching bearing too much uncanny resemblance to the sirens which were wailing like banshees at Mugendramon's city; where every miscalculation on their part would have had them discovered and killed. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"In the way they looked at people on sidewalks like they were about to pounce them at any moment. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"In the way they looked twice at the street before them, thrice behind every corner and alley – just in case a monster was lurking there. Then, they will once again be forced under the mantle of heroes who were charged with saving the world./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Walking amongst humans – expecting monsters. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Manual dish-washing was also hell. Wash a plate and think about something – or think you think about something, if you hadn't thought yourself to death yet. Did you? Maybe it was pulled to the forefront of your consciousness. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanThe plate is sent flying. A plate scrubbed to perfection – the porcelain had worn thinner. Barefoot on the shards; they embed themselves into the feet of their new host. Bleeding feet and numb toes, hyperventilating, and just standing there, staring – but that's it. Look, it breaks apart so easily./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"But worst of all was the perpetual waiting./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"To be summoned again. To be needed again. To return where they belonged and reunite with that lost piece of themselves once again. They were desperate for it. The return home. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Because that's what they knew. That itch for battle was always there and wouldn't go away no matter how hard they scratched. It was like sitting in the terminal, watching other planes take off while theirs was nowhere near arriving./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'It is kinda funny, really.'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"They spent the long days in the Digital World wanting, but unable, to go back to their homes in the human world. Now that they were 'home', they just wanted to go back to em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"that/em world. To em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"that /emtime. When they were able to laugh with innocence together./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'It is mostly sad.'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Because the truth of it was that they couldn't integrate into 'normal' society. Not really. Not after all they had done. What they lost. And the loss they caused. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It walks – and will walk – with them in every pace like a dead Siamese twin that could not be surgically removed. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"A few years ago, when they were bursting into the embarrassing stages of adolescence, was probably when shit em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"really /emhit the fan./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi, for example, couldn't go anywhere near natural history museums. Couldn't step a foot into the building. He was mortified to find himself in the hall with the dinosaurs' bones display – where he will be reminded of the incident with Skullgreymon's mutation, of the infection which spread to Agumon a few years ago, or of what Taichi felt were his failures at protecting him. What he felt were his failures at protecting Hikari. What he felt were his failures at protecting them all. And what he felt were his failures as their leader. What he felt made him useless./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"On those days, there was no point in reminding him that he was the one who rallied eight strangers, all frightened and unsettled children, in a strange land under one, tactical lead. That he helped pave their way to victory and the salvation of both worlds, through relentless courage and an unyielding sense of justice, when otherwise they would have been scattered and lost./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Not to mention that at the tender age of eleven he already had to make brave decisions, with the fate of two worlds hanging on the line, in a hostile, dangerous, and chaotic environment. All that, after having witnessed the destruction of his city, the endangerment of his family, and the death of his friends right before his eyes. Then, he had to factor in the complexities and complexes of his fellow Chosen – and em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"so help him/em, but Yamato knew better than anyone how difficult that was. And Taichi never asked for any of this. He never wanted to be the leader and he didn't ask for that responsibility – who does? But he did it anyway. Sure, Taichi didn't have all the answers all the time, and he sure as fuck had had his own share of mistakes. Those alone served as half the reason Yamato always stayed with him. But the most hardened soldier of all commando units couldn't have performed better. And again – em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"he was bloody eleven/em at the time! His pubes hadn't even begun imagining themselves into existence yet! Then he had to redo it when he was seventeen and barely knew what he wanted from his life – /spanwhile cultivating the ability to make lucid decisions in a heart-beat and anticipating the worst case scenariospan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;". Puts things in a strict perspective, doesn't it? /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"But on em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"those /emdaysem style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;", /emTaichi didn't care./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"That one time during their senior year, when he couldn't fake it, Taichi was forced to go with the class trip which ended with him spending most of the day retching all over the public toilet. Yamato stayed beside him the entire time, waiting outside the booth, sloppily whispering his care and hoped it breached the sounds of violent regurgitation./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"When Taichi finally emerged, his eyes were bloodshot, his expression dead. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato didn't want to know what passed through his mind that day. Oh, Yamato knew – of course he knew – but he didn't em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"want/em to know. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Few things scared Yamato as much as feeling Taichi's strong fighting spirit being extinguished, sensing a dent in that huge heart of his or seeing fear in those amber eyes which usually burnt with so much passion and unerring resolve. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"But they did not on em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"that/em day./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato called Taichi's parents to come and collect him, and they didn't speak about the incident again. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi didn't want to be deemed weak, like he was made of glass or something. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He wasn't. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Neither of them was. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi also knew his friends respected him and would follow his leadership through the valley of death for as long as he was willing to lead them. So, for the sake of his crest and those who believed in him, he refused to crumple and faced his issues over the years head-on – just 'cause that's his style – through gradual exposure. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'And it was bloody brilliant, really. Taichi was brilliant. More than brilliant. Taichi is as brilliant and as formidable as a shell of solid diamonds.'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"But these things take time. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"There was that street. The one whereem style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;" they/em fooled around before Vampdamon murdered em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"them. /em/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato flat out avoided it – sometimes improvising mighty creative ways to do so. Sometimes getting too creative and challenging what was applicable within the realms of physics to an unhealthy end. And when he ran out of options, he would walk a tad bit faster – or, run – while keeping his eyes trained on the pavement and not glancing sideways. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"And that was only the beginning of the splendid fuckuppery that he was. em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"'After Taichi…'/em Yamato still feels the goggles, which are not his, never were, and shouldn't have been there, around his neck. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Mimi and Sora./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"Now that was a cheery pair,'/em sarcasm was thick in his mind. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It wasn't entirely clear when Sora started feeling like she was losing control over her life, and began compensating; or when Mimi started thinking she was disappearing and being erased from existence. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Maybe Sora finally lost any semblance of appetite and stopped eating after seeing Mimi purging her entire lunch up. Or maybe Mimi started throwing up because she was disgusted with how thin Sora was becoming after living off nothing more than cotton balls dipped in juice. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato wasn't informed on the finer details. They hadn't talked about it. Instead, a solidified ring of silence bound Mimi and Sora since. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Luckily, it was a short-termed tryst and Jyou caught up just in time. The issues were resolved before any hospitalisation was due. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Jyou…span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanHe had it easiest. He was a med-school student, which meant he was em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"so/em overwhelmed with work em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"so/em constantly that he had the perfect excuse to drown himself in a workaholic's drill, and never glance back. He got better after starting his practical training, though. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Koushiro stopped sleeping for a while. Instead, he elected to spend his days and nights reconfiguring programmes, typing permutations for sets of multivariable equations in the C complex field, breaking down and reassembling computers, again and again and again. As though one of those times will reveal something that he missed, a portal of a sort./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"A way back./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'But the gate between worlds will not melt anymore. Not as it used to. Not for us. Even if we could travel there, the world we'll see is not the one we saw once. The Digital World is like a paradise and only the innocent are allowed inside. /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"We are not so innocent anymore. /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"There is no going back to those days./span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It is once again out of our reach.'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Which is, in a sense, such a twisted notion. What they experienced was goggles tend to omit the segment about how almost being killed was part of their daily routine. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Still, three years ago, when the Kuwagmons attacked and their Digital partners appeared in the human realm again to protect them; when Ordinemon struck and the fate of the two worlds once again hung by a thread – was the most balanced Yamato had been in years. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'In this chaotic, potentially infinite universe of ours, which may or may not be constantly diverging into parallel dimensions, everything can happen.'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"When they finally returned to the Digital World and rekindled the friendships with their Digimon after the memory erasure, it held a promise Yamato couldn't define. Maybe because it smelt to him of hope, even if hope was far more his brother's forte than his own. Who knows? /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Speaking of the devil…' /span/emspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato will be the first to admit there was something detrimentally painful about Takeru and Hikari. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Angemon was the first to die in the battle against Devimon, and Patamon was the first to contract the infection. A crooked-faced pillock with half an eyeball in his socket could tell those left permanent marks, and that's before considering the piling mountain of shit left from their parents' divorce. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Takeru didn't tell Yamato directly, but at some point Takeru indulged himself with the naïve idea they would all become a big, happy family again one day. That's not the best indication for emotional stability. Not to mention he became way too good at deflecting questions and hiding behind that brilliant smile of his. No one could see him cry any longer. That's too sad. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"And Hikari, 'em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"oh god,' /emthat was some convoluted turf. There was way too much going on with this girl. Including the occasional possession by an interdimensional deity. Seriously, Hikari didn't need a shrink – she needed an exorcist. But there's one thing Yamato had a suspicion about and which he wasn't going to tell Takeru. Maybe not even Taichi. Maybe not ever. He wasn't sure he could verbalise it to himself. The notion that there were times when the undertows of her feelings for Taichi had teetered on the very edge of what was appropriate between a brother and a style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Still,'Keru and Hika fared pretty well. Takeru bloomed into a social butterfly and Hikari into a young woman, wise beyond her years./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Maybe it was due to their unique traits of hope and light. Maybe because they were younger when it all started. Maybe because both had brothers who used to do everything they could to shelter them for as long as they were allowed to. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Really,' /span/emspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"a rueful smirk pulled Yamato's mouth up, 'em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"whoever decided to recruit children for that wild train ride was a goddamn genius. And got some dubious intrinsic priorities.'/em/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Recruited or kidnaped, children were adaptable in all sorts of freaky situations where adults were not at all. They healed faster as well. They were also much more open-minded about accepting the impossible; like an alternative universe populated with digital fauna, to name an style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanem style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Most importantly, children did not have to deal with the complexities which often accompanied wars. It was pretty black and white back then – bad things tried to kill them, and they did what needed to be done to survive. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Only in retrospect they understood the heavy weight placed upon them by making those decisions; Taichi more so than anyone. Fuck, if it were rocks, his spine would have been telescoped./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"But Yamato was pleased to proclaim that no-one looked back with regret. They understood that sometimes there is no choice, and that one cannot always take the easy, safe way out of everything. What they earned, the love, the bonds – it was all worth it. They had something no-one else had: a world of their own, physically and metaphorically. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Also, their adventures were an Odyssey, after all, and they grew so much through them. For all their troubles, they were happy with who they were and would change nothing. They loved the adults they grew into, and everything which led them to being who they are – the pains and joys of it all were included in that love. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"And indeed, despite the crazy, in the overall picture they were students, many of whom were in mature relationships, some already working – pretty much the staple of functioning members of society. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"So… yeah, life got back on the road. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Well, for everyone except Ken. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He had it worst by far. He had the whole Post Traumatic Stress Disorder mixed with a nice, large bowl of survivor's guilt – with the latter being by far worse, where the mere idea of being alive was nauseating. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He woke up every single night screaming, clawing at his own face in a desperate attempt to banish the fiends lurking beyond his eyelids, and proceeded to drink himself to sleep with Captain Morgan's finest./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Maybe he was lucky, in a twisted sort of way, because at least he was treated by doctors and had a name for his condition. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Ken didn't even have to divulge anything about the Digital World to his shrinks – he could blame everything on his brother's death. It was true in part anyway. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"So, after much fuss over nothing and Jyou helping to push papers along – fuck knows how he did that without breaking every single federal rule in the state or being grassed up – Ken was prescribed with some quality medicinal hash. He probably collected it from some backwater village that's gone under the government's radar since the Edo period. The best part of the achievement was that, since the portions were always larger than the patient required, and since Ken was the sharing type – they'd all been made all the happier since. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Still, there were relapses. Ken hadn't miraculously transformed into a happy camper overnight. Once, he confided in Yamato that, on the very bad days which inevitably come along, he crushes Recital and Clonex into a fine powder of happy pills and snorts them. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Works like a charm on speed," /span/emspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"he had said, solemn, back then. "em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"Reaches the brain almost instantly since it doesn't have to go through the digestive system." /em/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'… And poisons you, of course!' /span/emspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"But Yamato was the last person to preach to anyone about self-destructive behaviour. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Instead, he sat by him. em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;""Life can either be a roller coaster or the walking trail next to it. Either a wild ride full of ups and downs, happiness and sorrow, or be a steady path which offers no thrills for you but doesn't take anything away from you either. Personally, I don't see the point in paying the entrance fee just to see everyone else have all the fun, and not participate myself. Whatever you choose, though, what's important is that you keep on walking; you'll never know when you'll walk into the best day of your life."/em/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"That seemed to put things in perspective for the younger boy, if not plainly cheer him up./span span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: HE;"T/spanspan style="mso-bidi-language: HE;"hus /spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato bought them two/span span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"tall bottles of Ruski Standart and they tore all the way through three quarters of the second one before dropping comatose at his place. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"If anyone bothered him about giving alcohol to 'minors', Yamato would whip out his cock and go pee-pee on that person's shoe. First and foremost, he protected his own. The moment something was too dumb to justify its existence, he couldn't give a fig about it. Sure, he wasn't a stupid teenager who needed to practice stupid, teenage bullcrap, to throw a riot in order to let out some steam, or shoplift for the kick of the adrenalin. /spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: HE;"R/spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"ules and laws in society made sense to someone./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"But if Ken was old enough to fight a war with monsters from a parallel universe while having Cthulhu and the Dark Ocean on his tail, he sure as hell was old enough to drown his sorrows afterwards. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He and Yamato got out of that one scot-free and, when they woke up, they agreed not to repeat that ceremony again. Well, at least Ken wasn't jacked up on psych' pills and no psychiatrist tried shushing him down by sedating him. He'd be dead. On the inside as well./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"A single capsule of Lemojin – really, just one – and a person will shut right off. Positively everything will become ashes in your mouth as you become desensitised. No passion, no care, no hate. No will to live; no strength to die. A husk of a human, like a Golem, walking around in a three dimensional space with nothing but inertia to keep them moving. Like looking at the world through bullet-proof glass./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"One pill of Lemojin, just one – and you were a drone. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"As far as the rest of this quagmire called life goes, both Ken and the rest of them found their ways of coping. Just like everybody else. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"But on days like these, when Yamato's thoughts became heavy and leaden, the only thing he wanted to listen to was Tom Waits' raspy voice rumble "Hell Broke Luce" inside his skull. He plugged in his earphones and made himself deaf to the world till he decided not to be./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Beyond the experiences they had in the Digital World, it was also the special comradery they missed. Their Digimons. Their best friends. They won't have anything like that again. Even after their long-awaited reunion, who knew if they could cross the threshold of the digital gate again? Will the memories they created be washed away one day again, or will they permanently remain with their Digimons this time? And even then, for how long will the Children be allowed to walk within the gardens of their Eden?/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Gabumon… Fuck…'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato took out his own weed for a smoke, pre-rolled into a thick stick and ready to be puffed. But, hey, of all the things he was willing to suck on, at least ciggys weren't among them. Growing up with rancid nicotine stench stuck to every piece of furniture in his house, Yamato considered avoiding his old man's penchant for fags as one of his successes in life./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"This /span/emspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"is em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"clean /emin comparison./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"And just like everything else – this is an outlet. Just an outlet. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"Notes:/p  
p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: -.25in; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"!- [if !supportLists]-span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"span style="mso-list: Ignore;"1)span style="font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';" /span/span/span!-[endif]-Ordinary Differential Equations: ODE's are a type of equations that, in short, describe continues states in one variable (dimention)./p  
p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: -.25in; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"!- [if !supportLists]-span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"span style="mso-list: Ignore;"2)span style="font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';" /span/span/span!-[endif]-Recital and Clonex: anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications in this order./p  
p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: -.25in; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"!- [if !supportLists]-span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"span style="mso-list: Ignore;"3)span style="font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';" /span/span/span!-[endif]-Ruski Standart: a brand of high quality Russion Vodka./p  
p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: -.25in; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"!- [if !supportLists]-span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"span style="mso-list: Ignore;"4)span style="font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';" /span/span/span!-[endif]-Lemojin: a type of "mood adjusting" prescription drug./p  
p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: -.25in; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"!- [if !supportLists]-span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"span style="mso-list: Ignore;"5)span style="font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';" /span/span/span!-[endif]-Fags: for cigarettes – not the derogatory term for a homosexual./p  
p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: -.25in; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"!- [if !supportLists]-span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"span style="mso-list: Ignore;"6)span style="font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';" /span/span/span!-[endif]-span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanThere is a line here inspired by one of Nobi Nobita's mangas. I'll further credit her by the end of the fic./p  
p class="MsoNormal" /p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;" /em/p 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Land of Confusion and a Mad World - Your Beautiful Madness, My Beautiful Grief.

The roars of excitement, the blaring singing, and the proud pats on their shoulders accompanied Taichi along with the rest of the victors all the way down the well-worn trek to the showers.

The captain of the team was so hyped he practically flew his way over, as though he had a rocket attached to his bum cheeks.

' _We won! We mother-fuckin' won!_ '

The jabbering and jittering hadn't calmed down till after they had had cold showers. Even then, the damp and foggy changing room was alight with the buzzing of boys planning the after-party and other topics which frequented the minds of men. Those usually were – if not more matches – women and sex; who had them and who didn't.

Personally, Taichi didn't find the appeal in making this spectacular parade out of any of these subjects – but whatever. Locker-room talk was always testosterone sewage in its purest form; like listening to people expel _diarrhoea_ through their throats. Taichi tuned out and let his mates do whatever they wanted without him.

He slipped off his towel and changed into his jeans before emerging from his isolated changing booth, and into the centre of the room where the majority of his mates were hanging about, still motor-mouthing about all sorts.

They busied themselves by slapping each other's bums with twisted towels – which was the way the ultra-masculine members of his sex communicated 'congratulations!'

Whenever possible, Taichi preferred changing in private. All right, yes, he was a bit shy there, so what? His loins weren't anyone's affair, save for the girl who had either of her lips against them.

Also, as captain, his priorities were all about the team. They're supposed to work together, know each other's moves and styles better than their right hand on a lonely night. The last thing he wanted was to jeopardize that with someone's inferiority complex.

But, most of all, he didn't want them to stare and start asking questions about how many cherries he popped with that beast, and whether or not she cried when his tool got inside her.

Taichi wasn't going to preach to anyone, not as long as they didn't cross his red lines, but he hated the way some people still got in a huff and a puff about virginity. Like it was some bloody commodity. Like a measly centimetre of skin, which can be ripped by riding a bicycle, could determine someone's worth.

It can't. Period.

' _It was barely really a thing anyway!'_

Blokes didn't even have that much. They may as well plunge their cocks into a can of Spam and call it sex. It's all so stupid!

No one celebrates and pops a beer whenever their dog gets his ends away with the neighbor's Labrador bitch, right?

Was it a weird thing for a dude to be sensitive about? He just sorta was. Hikari, Sora, Mimi. His mum. _God_ , mum. If someone _ever_ talked that way about his mum…

Not to mention that those who talked about _it_ , were probably not having _it._

Taichi handed several high-fives when he crossed the isle of nude bodies on his way to his locker and made sure he had motivational words for each of his players along the way. He entered the numerical code into the dial and flung his rucksack in with the mechanical motion he was so accustomed to.

When he closed it, he was met with Yuri's cheerful stare. The bloke was about a head taller than Taichi but not quite as broad. He was one of the best wing-backs Taichi had the pleasure of kicking a ball with and was overall a good sport; a decent fella.

"Say, Taichi …"

Taichi hummed to indicate he was listening.

"Was she your girlfriend?"

That question was so out of left field, Taichi's laughter trigger almost exploded.

"Who? The brunette from the field? Nuh, mate, I only met her today." Taichi hauled a clean T-shirt over his head and looked back at Yuri. "You fancy her? She's nice. I'll hook you up. I don't really care."

If anything, the proposal made Yuri flustered. "Not her. The pretty blonde one? The one from the end of the match?" He looked almost nervous before stammering, "not that I want to piss on your territory or anything, mate!"

Taichi scrunched his face, confused, before realisation dawned upon him and he couldn't suppress the snort which followed.

"Shit, bro, no! N-No! No no no no no! That was just one of my back-home comrades and I can assure you that he is _all_ male. He comes to every match; funny you never saw him before."

' _ **Though it was the first time Yamato got off his lazy bum to say hello in front of the entire team.'**_

Still, Yamato and the Knives had an exponentially growing fandom – or at least they were getting big enough to be the main event of their own concerts. Complete with the KoD logo sprawled in huge letters over fancy gig tickets! Not to mention the up-and-coming album. His band was even interviewed on the telly after winning some local Battle of the Bands! And Yamato's face was plastered over all the posters near the clubs, so Taichi expected he'd be recognized by people. Then again, no one in the team was the crowd for Yamato's music.

Yuri looked relieved. "Is he seeing anyone?"

Taichi was floored. Yuri scored off the field almost as much as he scored on it. He was poster boy for anything straight!

His team mate seemed to have a solid idea what Taichi was thinking, because he quickly added, "look, I ain't a faggot or anything," he rubbed the back of his neck like they did in films where the director wanted to express discomfort – even though most people don't do that, "but-"

"Oi! Captain, no homo, but your 'back-home' mate can pull off parading knickers better than most North-side skanks any day. The plumbing doesn't matter. Hole's a hole, you get me? Ignore the cobblers and shove it in the back passage," a new opinion no one asked for quipped in on their little discussion along with the vulgar arse it belonged to. "Your pretty shit's a perfect ten."

Roman gave them an obnoxious sneer, insinuating he has had experience in the field of which Taichi seriously didn't want to know anything about. "A good arse is a good arse is what I'm saying," he concluded and went to shave in front of the mirror.

Someone had just described Yamato as 'a pretty shit.' Taichi had to ingest that. _Someone_ had _just_ described _Yamato_ as 'a pretty shit.' What the actual fuck?! _Someone_ had just described _his_ Yamato as 'a pretty shit.'

It was a good thing Sora had a changing room all for herself. Other than for the obvious reasons, her sense of loyalty would have forced her to go full 'Mama' mode and rip the bloke a new derrière.

While his happy place was laying out assassination plans, Taichi noticed the eyes of the entire team were on him, curious.

' _What? Seriously?!'_

Yuri seemed as exasperated from Roman's attitude as Taichi felt, but also somewhat resigned. Like he acknowledged the deeper, meaningful point the sod was making. The much, _much_ deeper point. Of the variety that required either a Drillmon or a CAT jackhammer to dig out from under Roman's rubbish talk.

"Were you honestly never curious…?" Yuri asked eventually, almost pleading for sympathy.

Again, all eyes were trained on their captain, waiting to gauge his reply.

Sure. Even Taichi, who definitely preferred women, appreciated the fact that the man was aesthetically pleasing – but most men could do that. You don't need to have an excess affection to the male ding-a-ling to notice that the guy attached to it isn't horribly deformed or anything.

It's just that with Yamato, who had won the Royal Flush of the genetic pool, there was no challenge there at all.

And then there was the fact that Yamato didn't look like anyone else. The hair, the fair skin, the eyes –

they're so fucking blue. Got him _a lot_ of attention, those did – which Yamato hated. The bad type of attention usually. Most people don't want to be a racial fetish on a stick. Taichi got it.

"Dude, this is my best friend. We're bluds since I was eleven… no… just… no…"

"So…" Yuri goaded him, leaving the question hanging midair in the hopes Taichi will catch it and spare him any lasting distress.

Taichi didn't answer immediately. In retrospect, he shouldn't be so shocked about the whole thing. Maybe only about Yuri's willingness to admit it in front of everyone.

Yamato didn't _feel_ like anyone else either. He had a certain atmosphere about him to compliment his exclusive physiognomy, and Taichi was sometimes fascinated by him in ways he wouldn't be by most things. Sometimes, it seemed to him that Yamato had the ambiance of someone who holds the world between his fingers; as if the he was breathing a lux brand of air independent of what was given to everyone else.

Unlike the stifling majority of guys who are running high on testosterone, trying to body-build themselves into brick shithouses to rival Schwarzenegger till they won't be able to find their own dicks, Yamato sort of… didn't? It almost kinda sorta looked like confidence –and confidence goes a long way. Like with Emperor Norton from San Francisco. If you had enough confidence, you'd get away with wearing nothing but a Muppet on your dick in broad daylight.

' _Showing off Kermit the frog_ _gurgling your cock. Now, there is another precious childhood memory gone down the drain.'_

But Yamat's insides are _way_ too complex to dig into. It could get like a bloody Rubik's cube down there. His insides are also on the squishy side, but most people didn't get that far. They didn't know how kind he was; in his own way, but he was. Most people were warded off by the eremitic, 'fuck-off' vibe he broadcasted. Bloody hell, he _still_ trusts so little. He's still so, _so_ careful about becoming too close to anyone. Taichi felt downright blessed.

That's just about the only reason warhead-Yamato didn't get around as much Taichi did. His attitude was his suit of armour. But, 'cause of his foreign looks, Yamato got away with some pretty remarkable shit – and he knew that. Even getting opinionated with high-rankers. Since he got his ears pierced, he was almost the spitting image of a delinquent, but somehow, _still_ no one gave him crap about it.

Taichi understood that. He wasn't one to blow his own horn but he was all for self-awareness, and, factually – he didn't get the short end of the stick either. Girls definitely gave him a second glance when he was around. Maybe even some guys who preferred remaining anonymous – who knows?

Yet _he_ was not the one who made straight blokes doubt the true wills of their genitals. If people gave Taichi a second glance when he passed by, they couldn't keep their eyes off of Yamato.

No one had to know perpetual fighting for survival in an alternative dimension and a few near-death encounters, coupled with an arduous struggle against his inner demons, made everything which followed a walk in the park for him. It's easy to fabricate an aloof grunt and keep it in place when your most basic standard for living is: "Nothing tried killing me today and the world isn't exploding."

Taichi himself didn't resent the situation either. He was drawn in that first time he heard Yamato's sad - _always_ _sad_ \- melody from his harmonica, just like everyone else. And ever since. He adored it when Yamato played the thing.

He also loved having pretty things around him to look at. Taichi had a pretty little sister and he lived in a pretty little apartment with the rest of his pretty little family. He had a pretty reflection in the mirror which drew many pretty girls to him. Having a best friend who followed the trend seemed only fitting.

And Taichi did like his face.

' _And now his thin, skimpy physique and boyish charm is luring out the inner gay lurking in all my boys; the complete and utter bastard.'_

Not only the boys, though. Some people got obsessed.

Yamato had a stalker once. A man who used to send him letters filled with dead bugs. He gutted them, plucked out their appendages and glued them inside the envelopes. Real basket case. He didn't stop until the police got involved. Thing was – the coppers let the man off with a warning.

' _Sure,'_ Taichi puffed _'because wagging fingers around and giving a stern talk always prevents murders from happening.'_

So Taichi had Koushiro break into the police files and paid a little visit to the bloke's house, where Taichi sent him off with a _real_ warning.

As expected, they never heard from the guy again.

Back in the present, Taichi still had a question to answer.

Frankly, it wasn't his business what Yamato did or with whom. Thing is, Taichi didn't like the direction Yuri's little semi-closet-outing was heading.

But what was Taichi gonna say? A flat 'no' would raise more questions than he cared giving answers to. What's more, if Yamato had a chance for happiness with Yuri, Taichi should not stand in their way.

Yuri was a great one, as well! Sorted, fun, and, when he was serious about something, he went all out. From what Taichi gathered about his team mate over the last two years, it was clear to him Yuri was being serious right now. Seriously interested anyway.

' _ **And what then, eh?'**_ A selfish and mean, mean, _mean_ little voice whispered in his head _**'Is he gonna hang out with us?**_ _ **Learn about the Digimon? What will you do if Yamato preferred him over you? You know – someone he can actually have a clean start with? And it's healthy for couples to also become besties, so Yamato probably won't be around so much any longer to let you crash in his house or listen to your idiotic bull. No more scalp massages for you! Not even when you're doing homework. Or drunken air-guitar solos when he jams. He probably won't be around long enough to give you any attention at all, come to think about it. Bye-bye harmonica.'**_

' _It's Yamato we are talking about here.'_ Taichi countered himself ' _Remember? Friendship is his forte?'_

' _ **So? Yours is courage and you can't even watch Jurassic Park!'**_

Taichi wanted to punch himself in the face two or three times right about now. Whatever it takes to make the voice shut up.

He also had legitimate reasons for being taken aback by the concept of Yuri and Yamato dating. One such being that it was not likely to go over smoothly. And it won't be Yuri's fault either.

No one here would last in a serious relationship with Yamato. It'd be like a house of cards.

Taichi will never forget that incident. The images were tattooed to his mind.

The football practise ended later than expected that day. Since he didn't feel like wasting half an hour of his short life waiting for the next bus, he hiked back to his apartment.

It wasn't even a thirty minute walk. Somewhere between the arena and his home, however, nature decided to throw him a surprise party.

Luckily for his raging bowels, Yamato's place was a block away.

He rapped hard against the door with his knuckles. Since no reply came after two seconds and his internals had limited patience, he plucked the spare key from its hiding place – a ceramic pot of dead Geranium – and let himself in.

He scrambled for sweet deliverance in the shape of a porcelain bowl, but when he opened the door – bam!

Someone scooped up Taichi's grey matter with an all-purpose cheese grater, soaked it in turpentine, and put the mash back inside the box with little care for sloppiness.

The urgency kicking in his stomach was gone. Gone. Along with his motoric skills and internal processing unit. Whatever was going on, his brain refused to register it.

Yamato was in front of him, naked, with one leg bent over the ceramics of the bath. There was a shaving razor in his right hand. The crass metal of its serrated teeth pressed against Yamato's tense, creamy skin. It moved along his outer thighs. Inner thighs. Under his bum, above his thighs. 'Till everything there was an almost black, mutilated mess. The Gillette drew blood in thin, jagged stripes that rendered the skin around them baby-pink. Yamato's left hand was tucked between his legs. It moved rhythmically, frenziedly – up, down – pumping. He was panting. Pre-cum dripped on the floor of the tub and echoed in the confined space of the bathroom.

Neither time nor sound existed. A thick, metallic scent drowned the room. Taichi had no idea how long he stood there and stared at the elongated, red strings billowing from Yamato's incisions. Watched them reopening or appearing alongside the _plenty_ of already existing, pale, risen lines of scarred tissue. Traced them as they fell in a cascade down well-shaped legs. Followed their trickling unto a white towel situated strategically over the cold, marble tiles.

"What the fuck?!"

Yamato jerked from his affair, dropping the razor to the floor with a dull clatter at the sound of the door banging hard behind him.

Taichi waited for him with a blank face when Yamato emerged – now fully dressed. He sat, hunched forward with his knees spread and his arms between them, action ready. He didn't say anything, though. When Yamato came out of the bathroom and entered his own bloody kitchen, Taichi let him stay standing there, in mutual silence, until it was driving Yamato insane.

"Why are you here, Taichi?"

No answer.

"Go away, please…"

"I can't." Taichi kept verbosity to the bare minimum necessary, but he pointed to a chair next to him.

Yamato sat obediently. Beneath the table, Taichi's foot was bumping into his shin with a fixed rhythm. Yamato regained that infuriating composure of his and met Taichi's eyes, dead-on, unwavering.

"I know what you think but it's not it. You can kindly fuck off."

Taichi wanted to hack up that calm face of his into next Friday. "Will you stop being such a colossal twonk for a second?! For _one_ , _shitty_ , _little_ second?!" His voice rose to a pitch from the strain on his throat so Taichi forced it back to neutral. He didn't come here to fight Yamato. "Do you have any idea how full of shit you are…?"

Yamato bit his lower lip and flipped the table hard enough to use it as an improvised weapon. The fucktard prick here was begging for Yamato to wring his throat. To squeeze the life out of him with his bare hands.

He averted his gaze and stared ahead at the wall.

"Shit! Fuck! Shit! Fuck!..." Yamato chaned like it was the devil's last hymn and Taichi wasn't sure if it was calming him down or riling him up.

A spectacular bruise shaped like a thick stripe will be waiting for Taichi tomorrow morning at the area of collision between the avenging table and his rib cage. But Yamato won't get an ounce of pain out of him. He dented Yamato's pride – which constituted a recipe for destruction – but if he needed to remind the bugger who matched him in being a brute, stubborn arse, Taichi will stoop down to Yamato's level and beat him up in Yamato's own playground.

"Are you rational now?"

"Sod off, Taichi!"

The lip Yamato mauled under his chompers tore and was overtaken with more red globules. Those were lapped, sucked on, and drunk – then replaced.

When Yamato rolled his pupils to the centre of his eyeballs again, accommodating a patented snarl to intercept the confrontation Taichi begat, he looked like a rabid demon. These eyes of his weren't human. They were also shining with salt water which refused to drop.

"Yamato…"

Taichi sucked in a breath. Yes, he needed to know, but he trusted Yamato. He also trusted Yamato's sensibility which balanced Taichi's own. Not to mention Yamato was an organic hellraiser. He hurled himself into arguments faster than how Metallica's albums went from 'good' to 'suck.'

'The _violent, stubborn git.'_

In truth, Taichi couldn't push aside the little part in him which was churning and raving at the sight of the contrast between the milky skin and the dangerous sanguine – Neil Gaiman's Snow White doll. He couldn't forget that, and he couldn't forget the little dimples elegantly nestled above Yamato's backbone, or the beauty marks scattered here and there, drawing constellations along his body, either.

A body Taichi hadn't seen this close in many years and which had grown to fill the toned, athletic muscles of manhood since.

What tore Taichi's guts apart, though, was Yamato's expression before he noticed he had company. In that single moment, a phantasmagorical hand crawled into the cave of Taichi's mouth, slipped down his gullet and began crushing Taichi's windpipe till he could only wheeze through the cracks.

In that moment, Yamato was somewhere, far off and out of reach, dreaming. Some never-where Taichi wasn't sure Yamato'd be able to return from.

The image was branded into Taichi's mind, telling him so many things, but also absolutely nothing, and tugging on internal strings he wasn't aware he had.

He hated it. Sort of selfish, wasn't he? Not fancying the idea of Yamato going where he can't follow to drag him back. It brought up sour memories. This resulted in him letting his frustration out on the nearest target possible – that being Yamato.

So he exhaled slowly, changing tactics. If _this_ crap-tornado will continue going as bloody terrific as it had so far, he'll just be stoking Yamato's own anger. It'll be worse than its current 'break your face, reassemble it as your arse and kick it' level.

But Taichi'll need to tread carefully; the Ishida is a volatile beast.

Taichi walked up to him, sat on the adjacent chair, and placed his hand on Yamato's wrist, just above his still slicked, red palm.

"I'm sorry I lost my shit. I just-"

"Fuck off," Yamato repeated, brooking no further argument _or else._

"Yama- Yamato…"

Tense like a Tasmanian devil and with shoulders up to his ears, Yamato removed his arm from the touch Taichi offered. He didn't want Taichi's pity any more than he wanted his tantrums. If anything, he preferred the latter because they could at least fight the energies off and forget about this bollocksed mess.

He snapped his eyes back to Taichi. Reduced to cold and angry slits, blues pierced into incensed amber.

"I am not some fucking suicide case!" Yamato barked.

"I never said you are."

Taichi buried his face in his hands and growled into his fingers. He had to get through Yamato's walls before Yamato retreated any further into his protective fort of caustic sarcasm and bloodlust.

' _And those are bloody thick walls!'_

So Taichi swatted him over the head. "I don't pity you, you terminal arsehole."

He grinned when 'wha…?' got super-glued to Yamato's face. "I get it. You're a big boy; you can tie your own shoe laces and wank at adult sites without lying on the age checker. But … I..." He paused and closed his eyes. Agumon turned to Skullgreymon on the film playing behind his eyelids. "…What would you do if it was the other way around?"

Yamato's strong eyes skimmed the layers of Taichi's soul and were ripping its secrets apart while staring into something which was nothing at all.

Taichi shifted around. He hated when Yamato did that.

But he loved Yamato's eyes. Those were good, strong, eyes. They had power Taichi sometimes couldn't handle.

Softness visited the edges of Yamato's lips while he was looking at Taichi looking at him. "I would lose my fucking shit…"

"Like when Hell broke loose three years ago. You were in my face and up my arse about Omegamon. And everything else." And Taichi was bloody glad Yamato did. Few other sensations can imitate having the harmonised pounding of his and Yamato's hearts, inside and outside of him, when the knight in white materialized. As if they, too, fused.

"Couldn't let angst be your epitaph, oh fearless leader. You can piss off if you think I'll let you run away anywhere to throw pity-parties."

So he told Taichi about his first time.

"… we were still fighting, you and I. In our second year, when all the crap with the Digimon invasion happened, remember? I was just so fucking livid, Taichi. At fucking everything at that point. Bitter like you wouldn't believe. I walked home, went to the bathroom and just punched the mirror. I think I wanted to wash my face or something," he chuckled like it was somehow funny and not at all dissonant. "Guess I really hated my face, huh? So the mirror broke over my arm and the shards got in and ripped it up and… I don't know… it was good. Really good. I got into the tub – it didn't have water, I just didn't want to get out of the room – and just sat there, letting myself… feel? Just feel it. I think I fell asleep in there. And that's how Gabumon found me," another misplaced chuckle, "sleeping in my bathtub, surrounded by glass, bleeding and…" should he tell Taichi he was crying? Better not. "And then the cuts healed and it's like I was fucking invincible."

Taichi listened to what Yamato was saying. He nodded a bit, when he thought he understood. "Do you think you wanted to do this to yourself?"

Shrug. "Not really."

Yamato spent the next five minutes hammering into Taichi that he sure as fuck wasn't going to kill himself or anything along the line. He wasn't depressed. He didn't have issues. Then he corrected himself and said he had issues, but everyone had issues and his weren't any special. He just wanted to choose where he puts his battle scars.

"It feels _good,_ Taichi. You can jack off for hours and not get anything like this. It's like when you're in the bath or a pool and you duck your entire head underwater-"

"Wait, Ya-"

"Anything outside the tub starts sounding like a twisted, muffled echo, so you become really aware of your body instead. You know there is a world outside the tub – you've seen it, you were there, you can still hear some of it – but for the most part, you're falling into subspace with yourself. Only that I can't drown, it itches for an hour and I appreciate my organs in ways I didn't before. It makes me feel like back then…feel like I'm living…"

He didn't continue and Taichi didn't need him too. He always understood where Yamato was coming from – even if he wasn't there.

Now, more than ever.

Yamato waited for Taichi to say something. He wasn't sure what he expected to hear from him, to be honest. What did he want Taichi to do with all this information?

Before Taichi had the honest chance to, though, Yamato needed to show him something _important_. Even if Taichi understood him, he could understand better. Understand all the way down.

Yamato pulled his shirt over his head, again naked in front of Taichi. In the truer sense of the word.

Scars.

There were an 'S' and an 'M' carved into each of his sides. Two different 'K's marred the surface above where his kidneys would be, along with a 'T'.

Taichi had no idea what was going on but he had no power to stop this wild, alphabetical ride from getting derailed off its tracks. He didn't comprehend any of this; how deep Yamato was pulling him and allowing him to delve inside of _everything_ Yamato was. To see. How scary it all was.

Yamato could be intense – that's a given. This, though – this was some new level extravaganza shit.

At some stage, in the thick of confusion, anger, and the rest of the emotive circus Yamato was so proficient at provoking in him, this moment, right here between them, became very close and extraordinarily intimate. Taichi wanted to bolt out of the room and to the other side of nowhere.

But he wouldn't.

He was too afraid of never feeling like this again.

Yamato rolled up the hems of his grey joggers and showed Taichi a 'J' and an 'H' incised into each of his shins. And he didn't stop. He continued presenting all his initials, carved into his skin with a blunt scalpel, stolen from the Biology lab back in his Uni. There was one for each and every one of his friends and they'll be there till he'll die.

It was Yamato's very own twisted version of canvas and art.

More than anything else – blood was warm, connecting, and profoundly personal. It's not something you can explain. Maybe seeing the shapes left on him made him feel as though life acknowledged his existence and he had the proof.

He loved how each beautiful mark or disfigurement in his collection had an ugly story to tell and how the wounds became a dialogue. He could feel himself from the inside.

He loved the way stings from razors made everything shiver. The globe constricted around the wound in spiralling currents, shrinking planet Earth around him into an oversized grain of dust – like there was nothing else out there. Life itself was in his fingers, and it was such a mad adrenalin injection. His mind was clear. That was power.

The pain doesn't hurt. Every other blue moon and a bottle of beer, Yamato thought that if it stopped being there, he wouldn't know who he is.

Most of all, he loved how, this way, his friends were always there. With him.

It was so easy to make a cut, and when the wound scabbed and began healing – there was something very comforting about it.

Yamato stopped and stared at the ground, like he lost something underneath the floorboards.

Drama of the moment aside, in some way, for Taichi, Yamato came mighty close to resembling a domestic nudist who was dancing in front of the biggest window in his house before realising his neighbours were not blind. _Everybody_ knows one – the kind of folks who spent the day rubbing their unsanitary testes on their furniture, but only while indoors.

Taichi wouldn't have pointed it out. Maybe in the future, when they'd laugh about it, but not now. Pointing at things now will cost him his fingers.

Besides, Yamato caught a tinge of pink halo around his neck and the apples of his cheeks while locking eyes with Taichi again.

Yamato pointed to a 'T' engraved to the left side of his chest, just above his erratically beating heart. It was deeper, older, and bolder than the other incisions, and it shared room alongside a misshapen 'G', evidence that his hand was shaking when he committed the deed.

There was exactly nil deliberating between Taichi's hand and that vital organ located above his shoulders. His fingers reached out of their own accord and probed that white, bunched line of skin reserved for Taichi alone. Maybe he was trying to take it away.

Something inside of Taichi was clawing through, threatening to come out and tear them both apart. When shivers ran beneath him and gooseflesh erupted along Yamato's muscled outlines, Taichi's need to crawl inside Yamato until they were undistinguished pieces of flesh fused together, hit Taichi like a deluge.

Instead of yanking his hand away, he let it fall into Yamato's, where it was fastened around pale knuckles, and gave a small squeeze which promised all the support in the world. It was also a simple, wordless 'thank you' for being trusted so much. Within the compound of their enfolded hands, Yamato's thumb pet along the cushions of Taichi's palm – _'_ thank you' for listening.

Reality fell back to its normal, drawled tempo.

They sat in peaceful silence.

They could sit together like this for hours.

"…Were you going to tell me?... I mean, if I hadn't been here today…?" Taichi's voice was small, not wanting to ruin the brittle island of their calm.

Lasting between the question and the pending answer, there was quiet again, long and loaded this time 'round.

When Yamato made Taichi frustrated with him or worried, he purely hated himself, but Yamato wasn't sure what would be right to say and what would be wrong. 'Yes' and 'no' were both true to some extent, but also hollow and insufficient.

So he didn't talk. He held Taichi's hand. Just like Taichi did before.

"Do you… do you… mmm… always…?" Taichi had no bloody idea what his dumb mouth was getting at here.

"Masturbate when I do it? No, not usually. It's a mood thing."

A few more fleeting minutes, more or less.

Now Taichi knew.

"Yamato, I want to be a part of your life. Don't keep me out of the most important pieces of it." But at least until the day ended, sitting with him like this was good enough for Taichi.

Still, this didn't make things simpler. Taichi hadn't checked the statistics of how many people died each year from autoerotic asphyxiation, but he was pretty confident stabbing yourself to death was way easier than choking yourself to one.

He wouldn't have suggested a psychiatrist as an option for the life of him – not that he believed Yamato would make use of one. Or that he needed one, either. If it's not broken – don't try fixing it.

Back in the day, Hiroaki tried getting his son therapy. He was concerned, after the second time Digimons invaded Earth. Or maybe he just didn't buy the piss-poor excuse Yamato made about the mirror. So, he tried making Yamato get formal help to make sure his son didn't have any latent traumas waiting to burst like fucked-up festival fireworks in February.

According to Yamato, they found one who took reasonable rates _and_ listened.Someone whotreated Yamato like a human being and not a file-shaped burden _._ He even found reason in some of Yamato's emotional patterns, which helped him give a name to Yamato's particular brand of crazy.

But the doc was intending to retire by enlisting his services to Doctors Without Borders, or some other quirky humanistic group. He would have been a bit too busy sleeping in a hut at some backwoods, third-world country to care for paying patients. One of those pretty souls too good for this world, yes?

Afterwards, whatever psych-something type of therapists they could afford was rejected on account of Yamato not liking the way they looked at him. Until, one day, they reached some old hag who didn't look at him at all, and punched keys on her computer to oblivion.

" _So much for building trust, right?"_ he said then. Was right, too.

Yamato was too smart for that shit anyway. Besides, he didn't believe any outsider would help him any and medicinal prescription was sometimes just a sanctioned drug abuse. While they tried shoving him meds, he gave it a go, flushed them down the toilet, and wore a perfectly feigned, happy face to placate the authorities since.

But he trusted Taichi and the binds which tied their lives together.

On that day, promises were exchanged. Taichi's was to not trespass on Yamato's life decisions – not unless he made bloody dumb ones.

Yamato made several, but only one which mattered to Taichi. Not to hit too deep. Not to cut too close to where main veins or arteries were bundled. _Never_ hide anything like this from Taichi. From childhood to adulthood they didn't withhold the truth from one another, and that tradition was going to be kept.

Together they spent the afternoon finding ways for Yamato to cater to his needs in more constructive ways. Tattoos, piercings, and playing his bass so hard his fingers literally bled were but few of the solutions.

As soon as the adrenalin and tension subsided, Taichi remembered the real reason he was there to begin with. After almost breaking both the door and the latrine, he let loose the dump of his life.

He didn't go home. After leaving, Taichi went to the second hand bookstore and purchased anatomy, biology, and medical textbooks. He learnt where main blood vessels were, what to do if one was damaged, and how long it takes for blood to congeal. He also got Yamato a rust-resistance flick-knife that Yamato started carrying around shortly after.

For a few months, Taichi gave Yamato surprise physical examinations, and was surprised right back when Yamato acted lenient and didn't snap his jaw around Taichi's hand. Taichi'd strip him almost bare and Yamato would look aside, stay silent, and tuck his hands between his legs.

Taichi was thorough. He checked for vertical, deep cuts along Yamato's thighs or wrists and kept a tab on his belly.

Yamato never cut his wrists. Wasn't stupid enough to leave marks in locations everyone could see.

Looking back, maybe Taichi should have got suspicious way back in high school, when Yamato started adding the word 'knife' to all his band names. It _had_ to indicate _something,_ right?

The weirdest part for Taichi was how, after that day, it wasn't so weird. Of course Yamato wasn't meant for virgin skin.

During their first adventure, Yamato always started fights with Taichi although he lost a lot. He took the responsible rout which dictated caution at the cost of opportunity, but threw himself into the fray without second thoughts left and right _._ Something tried choking him more times in one month than anyone else Taichi has ever seen on WWE! There's a pattern here. Maybe Taichi read too much into it to try and explain things for himself, though. Not every fetish requires some deep psychological background. Yamato could just be wired that way.

Realistically speaking, a romantic relationship with Yamato will not have a fairy tale ending. The alternative was a one night stand – or a string of those – and Taichi wasn't exactly comfortable with renting Yamato as a fuck hole for the night.

' _ **You just don't want anyone else to see what he looks like naked**_ **,** _'_ that annoying voice barged in again.

' _Screw you! Some of these "straight" guys will pass him around like a glorified… glorified glory hole! Just to see how it is to have it off with a guy! Or worse – 'cause easy anal. Not all gay men even do anal!'_

That's what Taichi told himself. For everyone's sake, this wasn't going to happen.

' _ **Well, he does have…'**_

' _Don't you even think about finishing that line!'_

This wasn't going anywhere pretty. Taichi may be overprotective, but he also knew his team. They were his mates and everything, but some of these boys had the dumbest, most lucrative expressions on their repugnant mugs he had ever seen.

Winging it was his best choice – with a Daisuke-style obfuscation.

"I'll ask him."

"Great! How 'bout you bring him to the party next week? Neutral territory and shit, right?"

' _Piss off.'_

"Right."

At least he will have enough time to come up with some excuse explaining why Yamato didn't make it.

To his right, Roman decided this, now, was perfect timing to erode Taichi's precious patience an itty bitty further. "You seriously not shagging him? You impotent or somethin'? What's the point in having that hot, little bum around if you're not doing anything 'bout it?"

There were a few, rare occasions when Taichi genuinely wished he was _not_ the captain of this team. This was one of them.

If he weren't the captain, he would have slammed Roman's ugly mug repeatedly into the wall so hard his pathetic excuse for a face would have been imprinted into the cement. Nothing short of bulldozing the entire building would have been able to remove the stain.

But he _was_ the captain. And a good captain will never raise a hand against anyone in his own team. Yeah, as the captain, he had the privilege of putting Roman on the bench for the entire season, but then the team would suffer.

The bloke may have been the human equivalent of garbage juice, but he was one mean defender.

Besides, using his position for personal vendetta was out of the question. Losing his composure was not an option for Taichi. The moment he did, they will have lost their respect for him and that was dangerous. Then, he won't be any better than a bully abusing his power.

The issue was – he couldn't let this slide, either. Shit… The gods wasted a perfectly good asshole when they put teeth in Roman's mouth.

Luckily, Yuri had the courtesy to save Taichi the trouble. He grabbed Roman by the collar of his polo and thrust him against the lockers, hard enough to make the array of metal doors rattle.

"Chill," he said – a low, menacing tone at his disposal.

Now, Roman was a big talker, but if Yuri took their business outside, he would have reshaped Roman's face into a new Picasso. So, Roman tried to pull off some sad excuse for a relaxed attitude. "Alright, bruv. Just curious, ya' know? Don't get your knickers in a twist."

Yuri let him down, disgruntled. "Just sod off!" he barked after Roman's hastily retreating back.

He turned back to Taichi, offering an 'I-got-your-back' type of smile.

Taichi returned the gesture, strained as it was.


	4. Chapter 4

p class="MsoNormal" /p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato swung the glass door of the coffee shop aside. He nodded his hellos to the barista behind the counter, who returned the greeting, before descending the drab flight of stairs./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"This was standard procedure. When open, the door barricaded the entrance to the alleyway below. So neither the patrons nor the employees of 'em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"Belgique Goffre' /embothered themselves with giving Yamato the old strongspan style="color: #333333;"F/span/strongspan style="color: #333333;"luorine,span class="apple-converted-space" /spanstrongU/strongranium,span class="apple-converted-space" /spanstrongC/strongarbon, and strongK/strongalium concoction/span. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He vaulted over the last two steps and made an immediate U-turn, to be welcomed by the familiar red-on-black sign of 'Rock'N'Roll Tattoo.' /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"When Yamato pulled the handle of the heavy metal door, his ears were bombarded with a fusion between funk and rockabilly he didn't recognize. It didn't play long, before it paused and the music changed into The Raconteurs' 'Consoler of the Lonely.' Interesting contrast. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Then again, he expected no less from the burly ink slinger. How many hours has Yamato spent under the ministrations of his needles and found inspiration? How many hours has he spent here for no reason whatsoever? Save for maybe mollifying his pubescent boredom. He wound up exiting the place with plenty of crumpled notes and circulating, broken pieces of lyrics. And with his hair smelling like the illicit love-child of the Marlboro tobacco factory and not-so-freshly ground beans – but that's beside the point./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Victor was hunched over his cup of coffee, puffing out cones of smoke from his cigarette. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato knew better than to interrupt this oh so important ceremony, so he waited at the doorstep, hands shoved down his back pockets. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The man looked every bit the way a tattoo artist called Victor should look like, and his studio every bit the place to give abode to that sort of occupation. It was grimy and shabby enough to still hold true to that hardcore, bad-boy-bad-girl biker vibe tattoos should have – as opposed to all those new, squeaky clean "moda" places. But it got all the credentials and diplomas hanging from the walls to assure clients no one was going to get AIDS any time soon. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The man himself was as wide as a refrigerator and twice as tall, walking proudly with a broad torso that was regularly squeezed into a ripped denim jacket. His eyes were a piercing blue in a face framed by a majestic silver beard, braided all the way down into a bronze ring whose sole purpose was to hold the roughened facial hairs in place. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"On the overall, he looked like a Viking who got lost on the way to Valhalla and was content enough with staying in the mortal realm to combat boredom and tax collectors. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The studio's ground floor housed anything from civil war memorabilia to Soviet Russia collectables; a gallery of Victor's best works and a pimping red sofa whose full story was strictly on a need-to-know basis. And Yamato seriously didn't need to know. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Victor let out a throaty grunt when he noticed he had company, but he partnered it with a sufficiently jolly face as he reached out a strong hand for a hearty shake. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Blimey, what now?"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"If the skin-deep paint were his deal today, Victor would have had to work a few good hours longer into the night than he'd planned when he'd woken up that morning. Yamato had fine skin which didn't receive ink easily and quite a few beauty marks to work around. Additionally, Victor had to make sure it won't be seen, so no one will confuse Yamato with a Yakuza gangster. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"When he tattooed that blue wolf into Yamato's ribcage, a work which should have consumed three hours for any regular client, took about seven. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato tended to get capricious and he was aware of it. Still,/spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" he would think twice before pissing Victor off. /spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Ifspan style="background: white;" the man told him to use measuring utensils before mixing his disinfection solvent – Yamato would do it with a nanometre ruler. If he told him a design was poor – Yamato would pour gasolene on the piece and see its ashes turning into pollution in less than two minutes. If Victor told him to fetch coffee while wearing a can-can dress, Yamato would ask "how much sweetener do you take?" with a straight face. /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato would follow Victor's instructions like they were a recipe for a nuclear bomb. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Why? Because you want the man holding a two millimetre needle to your bollocks to be on your side. /spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Always/spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #444444; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Besides, Victor didn't do anything he didn't fancy doing. No tattoos he deemed too ugly or too cliché –like those rubbish Amy Brown fairies going around em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"everyone's /embacksides like a bad case of flees. No shitty music in the radius of his parlour. No disruptions during his hourly tobacco intake – and, if he said so, no shoving metal bars down anyone's genitals. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"No question, the man was picky. But twenty seven years of experience and a shelf full of prizes guaranteed that, em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"yes/em, he was just that good of a corker./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato came here with a cause, though:/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Guiche." /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Worst case, he'll be picked up, launched out the door, and ask again next week./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The big man gave him the once over, not quite as fazed by the request as /spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato /spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"expected him to be, and extinguished the remains of his fag in the coffee residues./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""The entire street will hear you screaming."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato stared, point-blank./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Victor threw the ash-juice into the bin and gestured /spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato /spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"up the familiar stairs with his thumb. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Better appreciate this, yob. If anyone else asked, they'd be mooning the highway."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; text-align: center; line-height: normal;" align="center"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"***/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Don't scratch, don't touch; apply a tad of salt water and ointment with a cotton bud. Yamato was tempted to ask Victor if he can have his balls tea-bagged, but figured this was the least ideal time to have his arse kicked./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The chap sent him on his way after it was half-night, with a prescription for the anti-rash ointment to be picked up at the pharmacy, and a warning to not show his ass here again in the near future; the actual butt-cheeks that is./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Along the way, Yamato's head was fizzling like a Marshall 2203kk amplifier set on max during Kerry King's sweet solo in a Slayer's concert. Having that new, little secret there was pleasant to him, and uber-sexy. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'What'll you think about your big brother if you'll find out, Tick?' /span/emspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Or better yet – what would em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"Taichi/em think?/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"His smug brother grew up to be quite an impudent playboy over the years. No, worse – he grew up to be a total troll. As for the delicious, yet obtuse, source of inspiration for Yamato's unwritten erotic stories, Yamato imagined many fun outcomes. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'And they all will be grand. If only you knew, Taichi. If only my audience knew. But they won't. It's all about the stardust and my arse there, innit?'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"So many people wanted to be "stars." But they didn't know why. Yamato knew why. They didn't want to be "stars." They wanted to em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"not/em be lonely. And they thought that if they'd be "stars," they'd be loved. And they thought that if they'd be loved, they will never be lonely. em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"'So they thought.'/emspan style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato always had that weird experience, like he was talking to an audience. Sometimes, his inner monologue would shift to plural form and start addressing an entire crowd. He could go on and on giving those amazing speeches and lectures, which would not shame his best professors, about everything and anything to a faceless mob. It was like a bloody TED talk in his head./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Maybe that's why he liked being on the stage. Or maybe he was one of those kids who weren't hugged enough growing up. Just another misfit, who's secretly desperate for love and attention because his mummy and daddy hadn't given him enough of either, and he ended up going looking for them in other, less savoury places. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He was also making a public spectacle of himself while he was at it, which was, apparently, too much for passers-by to face. A random mother just pulled her nipper away from him and crossed the street./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'That's me, number one public menace. Not the bank managers and shareholders who milk your pensions and savings dry, changing the rules of the game as they please so they get fat and plump while you wipe their arseholes clean with your tongues. Getting it all the way in till you can taste the truffles and caviar they had for lunch.'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato didn't get to have fun with his angry thoughts, though. He was yanked from his reveries by some crummy hobo, staring at him with a lurid defecation for a face./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Hey there gorgeous. Smile's for me?"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato ignored him. It was his practise. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The scrote didn't get the memo telling him how much of a vapid waste of human flesh he was, and decided to follow Yamato around, wobbling behind. Must've been bored beyond recognition./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Ten minutes in, and this routine was pissing Yamato off. He'd say it: it was becoming bloody disturbing. He didn't want to let it go on. Whoever this death-wisher was, he continued waddling along for an entire block of buildings. Yamato tuned out the background noises of the bustling boulevard to zero-in on the pesky fucker's footsteps, which were echoing his own, and get an estimate of the distance between them./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He wouldn't wager the shit-spewing pissant was dense enough to throw a show in public, but the street wasn't full, either, and he was beginning to tap dance on Yamato's last nerve. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato picked up the pace. He considered pushing the one-balled sphincter stain over a car and into traffic. If a truck had done humanity a favour, though, and someone would have started pointing fingers, Yamato would have had to kiss his future, and the integrity of his rectum, goodbye. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Also, the middle of the street was a bad place to start making a style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He was on the verge of running but not quite there when, faster than Yamato had time to process, the steps caught up to him and a rough hand slipped to his arse./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Com'n baby…" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"A breath of onions and alcohol loaded Yamato's nostrils. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Don't play so hard to get. I know what you want – showing off em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"that /emthing-" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The piece of shit gave a forceful squeeze and pulled Yamato into his stinking armpit, locking him in place. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""I'd rather shit my hands and clap, cunt!" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato locked his hands and rammed his elbow into the cunt's midsection. But either Yamato missed the vitals or the cunt had some impressive style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato was getting sick. Sick and so fucking fuming angry. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Wearing these tight clothes…" The man continued rattling his jaw, "I bet you want it em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"hard/em. I'm rich, ya know! I'll pay ya nice for one round! Let's do it in my Volvo," and slapped Yamato's backside. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Whatever incentive Yamato needed to catapult the fuck out of there went up to eleven. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Fuck it!'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato bent forward and jammed his heel into the man's lower shin bone. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""What about the word em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"'NO'/em are you unfamiliar with? The 'N' or the 'O'?!" There's just this emsomething/em about insulting stupid people. They absolutely hated being treated like stupid people./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The bell-end crumpled and lost his hold. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato legged it down the street like someone set his testicles on fire, not seeing where he was running off to, nor caring either, as long as it was not style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"How the hell did this situation go from bad to colossally screwed up so fast?! /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He made it past a corner before something heavy slammed into him, sending him into the backstreet between two buildings./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"In the interval between the moments it took Yamato's head to stop spinning, something blocked the sun./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Someone was yelling, "oi! Got meself a racer, ey?! Think yer too good for the likes of me?!"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato was grabbed by the back of his shirt and his vision went grey when his face was banged into the concrete wall. Then he was pulled back and smashed again. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Black dots floated in the forefront of his sight and his mouth tasted of blood, dust, and metal./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!/span/emspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato underestimated him. For his size, the knob-head had a brutal grip and he made his intentions for Yamato's posterior unambiguous to the extreme. Rough fingers locked into Yamato's hair and yanked his scalp backwards. Cold, serrated metal grazed his throat. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Screaming could have been smart. There's the chance it would have startled the bloke and bought Yamato the second he needed to dash off. But somehow he didn't do it. He wasn't programmed that way. Or maybe he decided the man was a complete nutter who'll slit his throat and skull-fuck the remains if Yamato tried./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Now, stand still, precious..." /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Cloth fumbling followed the chime of a belt buckle and everything Yamato saw was dyed red. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'The fuck I will.'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The berserk sense of white-hot rage steole into Yamato's blood and bones like a tumour. Every muscle in his body contracted like they were about to squeeze his skeleton outside his skin. He chocked. He felt like chockingspan style="color: red;". /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato plunged his elbow into the centre of the man's stretched arm, causing him to lose the knife and let go of his captive. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato finished the turn to meet the man's erection, all red and obnoxious like a target. Without a semblance of inhibition, Yamato packed his entire body weight behind the blow and kicked it. His face was all brandished snarl when he t/spanspan style="mso-bidi-language: HE;"ore/spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" shrill after shrill from the neck he wanted to snap. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He was damn pleased with himself for having had half the brain in the box to wear the heavy infantry shit-stompers his drummer stole from one of the armed forces' surplus warehouse – with the metal plates at the tips and everything. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He didn't just want to make the man shrivel to the floor/span span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"– he wanted to dip him in liquid nitrogen and smash him with a sledgehammer. He wanted him as a pulped pile of black and blue. He wanted to squash his balls into a blotchy paste with the colour scheme of the Swiss flag, so the man would become a Darwin Award nominee for literally rubbing the wrong person the wrong way. He wanted the smell of his blood./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"emspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'I'll squeeze the jelly out of your eyeballs and use it to lubricate an armada of angry pedos into your arsehole.'span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato knew the unwritten rules of combat; you weren't supposed to hit a person when they're down. This here wasn't a person, though. It was scum. Yamato kicked it on repeat as if his legs had an autoloading function. Yamato hit his legs, his ribs – so hard the shit stain would piss blood – and smashed his face into the wall. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""I'd kill you, but you're not worth the mud to bury you in, you flaccid fucknugget!"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Lifting a nearby brick, Yamato slammed it into his head. Not strong enough to finish him off – just beat him to unconsciousness. He didn't fancy having the long shlong of the law on his back later. Or, in it./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"When em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"the thing/em passed out and the adrenalin in his blood evaporated, Yamato's knees buckled and he slid down to the ground. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He didn't get any sense of release. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He didn't want to play hero. Not like this. He wanted to go home and cuddle with a warm cup of macha tea and a good book./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He shoved two fingers to the back of throat. Nothing came out. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The bump growing on his head still oozed blood. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck everyone. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He wiped his face with the back of his hand. Yamato was perfectly aware he wasn't built like a semi-trailer and the kind of attention his appearance entailed. He'd become informed about it the day the Chosen Children were hitchhiking with the Digimon, and that lady who pulled over tried to coerce him into having sex with her in the car; make him into a cute, little prostitute em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"when he was friggin' eleven!/em /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"There were probably all sorts of perverts even before her he wasn't aware of at the time, sweet, innocent boy that he was. So at twenty, he had a fist prepped to smash faces. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Fucking. Hell. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"His feet were on auto-pilot when they carried him home. He clambered over some fences, sneaked around three back gardens which weren't his own and voila! Home sweet home! /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Or at least so much a home that an empty apartment no one welcomes you back to can be. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Not that he complained. This state of freedom was what a university student gagged for./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He has been living on his own for a year and a half now. His dad got him the flat before going to work overseas, in America. Since Yamato didn't fancy leaving his entire life and friends behind, and because he was starting uni anyway, his dad agreed to co-fund him his very own nest. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It was in a little shabby part of town, but it suited Yamato fine. Other than that one lady from the adjacent house, who's a complete nutter who likes peeing in a pot and spilling her business out the window, his neighbours were the quiet lot. Quiet humans in quiet condos. A diamond in the rust where the lavender scent of clean sheets and drying linens always wafted about the small compound of buildings from laundry ropes. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"If the book 'A Clockwork Orange' had a smell, it would be a cocktail of these scenic scents./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The real reason he liked the place was not only because it was affordable, though. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The first floor was standard stuff. A roach-free kitchen, a bathroom, a toilet, and two bedrooms: one for him and one for lodgers – usually either Takeru or Taichi. There was no lounge either. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Then there was the second floor, and that was a state-of-the-art grand!span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanAll woodwork everything – from peaked ceiling to table, the stairs and their intricate railing. With enough space to fill with at least five more of those convertible sleeping sofas which opened into beds, Yamato also stuffed the room with bookshelves and his dad's old vinyl records. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The entire space may as well been something from a western, mediaeval fairy-tale, so he continued to design the place like a tavern from role-playing fantasy settings./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato let all his friends come and go as they pleased; made his house into a shelter for all the wayward souls around him. Those convertible sofas? For the days his friends drank too much, and getting their arses back to their respective homes would have proved to be a detrimental mistake for everyone's health./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He turned on the AC the moment he went through the door, tossing his wallet, keys, and lighter into the cabinet. He kicked off his boots and removed his wet, reeking shirt. It clung to him like a soggy bandage with way too much sweat, soot, and pollution. It was disgusting. He chucked it straight in the wash. His jeans followed./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He wanted to chuck himself in the wash. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He wanted to be clean. He wanted to wash almost every bit of this day away. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato could do with welling in stink here and there. He loved that stench that gets left behind after a wank. The one that kind of smells like him – only with sweaty bollocks, arse hairs, and wet wipes. He'd go with Taichi's bodily odours at any sort of configuration as well. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Right about fucking now, though, he just felt dirty, and even if he scrubbed himself ferociously with sulphuric acid, he wouldn't emerge clean afterwards. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He slumped on his bed, making sure he recorded every single bit of Taichi's performance today into the safe stash of his memory for future use. Whatever came afterwards was to be pushed into that dark corner of his mind to die. Or haunt him when he'll sleep. Whatever came first. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Meat pushed. Pushed. Pushed. Pushed. Pushed. Deep. Liquids.'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"To have such a perfect day cocked-up by a douche… em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"fuck. /emWhy didn't he bring the knife? /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato stared down at his naked body and threw a blanket over it. Being inside a chunk of flesh didn't feel right and he didn't feel like looking at it./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"With M83's "Skin of the Night" turned on to full-volume on his mp3 player, Yamato inserted the small beads into his ears, falling away. This music always made him go around experiencing the world the way astral projection was described; like he was floating through space, observing time and heat-melting around black holes. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Their material was incredible for undiluted MDMA trips. Or for a complete mushroom samba while he was at it. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He sang along a bit before passing out. The images of human anatomical parts, formed by diadems of stellar bodies, washed through the immaterialized state of his pre-sleep. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p 


	5. Chapter 5

His was a dying city.

Not deteriorating – at least not in the physical sense like big Hollywood directors enjoyed portraying in post-apocalyptic films a tad too much. It was in a more subtle, more apathetic and careless way.

Half the population was in its silver years. Generations were dying and not reproducing.

But his city was also a colourful one, where the musical notes of clashing melodies, evoked by street performers, hung in the air of the main roads like heavy incense.

Despite the prevalence of yesteryear's views amongst _some_ Machiavellian government officials – all of whom a gazillion years old and don't peek their mouldy faces out of their fart-smelling offices to learn what's going on in the fucking world – the homogenous façade was cracking beneath their feet.

The feuds between neighbours were kept at a minimum, and foreign businesspeople trickled past the border control in the airports. Maybe they were on the verge of becoming a diverse global village. Or maybe memories from WW2 were still too sharp in everyone's collective mindset. Thus, his was also a quiet city.

Too quiet; at least as far as the youth was concerned.

It was a city with nothing to see and no one to do. The pinnacle of any Friday night for anyone still lost in growing up, too young to drive, or just not sad enough to stay indoors, was climbing the steep slopes of the angular streets until they reached Aomi. It was some senseless form of pilgrimage.

There, the misfits and the dejected sat on the stairs leading into the grey building of Palette Town and hoped for someone, anyone, who'd reflect themselves back at them. Always in a perpetual search to find who they were, while trying to make some noise against the oppressing cycle of waking up and falling asleep with nothing of substance to fill the gaps in between. Shatter the visage of pristine cleanliness with grimy and dirty boots and revolt with music.

That's how this so-called dead place gave birth the weirdest mish-mash of an underground scene, sprinkled liberally with alternatives to lives which were too boring to put up with otherwise, while often defying the conclusiveness of names or labels.

As well as something else. Something exclusive to this no-man's land only his city could provide.

People went to see bands performing in seedy, godforsaken joints in the most miserable spots the arse-side of the city had to offer and had no regrets. The pen-pushers at city hall had the astonishing capacity for brains to propose late-night public transport. Two birds in one shot: parents could go back to multiplying while their underprivileged kiddies wandered in the night, _and_ the amount of drunken drivers was reduced – good idea all around.

Still, what Yamato loved most were those lasting few niche clubs which formed during his grunge days. Those which, till today, served as a home-base for other vagabond freaks of all kinds. In one such, he and his band will be performing in three weeks.

On the downer side, he almost didn't have time to go watch other bands' gigs nowadays due to university work. A BSc in physics won't do itself.

Seeing how far he'd take this band he had was currently on the agenda – but that was for now. This isn't for forever. The moment he'd try making music into a career, it'll become a chore and he'll get his life slowly sucked out of him – so fuck that. Yamato'd be a star in NASA or CERN and he'd do it his way. Like Miyamoto Musashi. Kinda. Sorta.

Until then, though, Yamato planned on being at least as good as Jeff Beck – the greatest guitarist who ever lived, even more so than Hendrix or Keith Richards. Yamato once saw an interview with Alice Cooper, where he was telling how he saw Jeff talking to a roadie while practising his solo.

At some point, the legend held the guitar's neck in one hand and ran quintas and tri-tones along its wooden majesty, from the base up, like he was using gravity to play. By the end of it, his fingers were put exactly two octaves down from his starting position. On that day, Yamato's mind was blown to bits. However, as a bassist, the one whose toes he aspired to lick was Les Claypool. His fingers… they did things.

Right now, Yamato was strumming Cheri Bomb – or Cheri for short – the sweetest lady on the face of the planet. What with her supple, _fabulous_ curves, long and slender neck, enticing red silhouette which bent to his will – she was the most beautiful bass guitar carved on Earth. He could wax harmonic about her all night and all day, every day, and still fall short from describing her ample attributes.

She was a 1969 Fender Mustang with custom-made pickups, a silver plate under the knobs, rosewood neck, cherry wood base, and Smith Burners. It used to belong to his dear papa back when the old man rock-and-rolled himself, but it had passed on to Yamato, all shiny and minted, seven years back. And that was bloody terrific, since the market price for his precious baby today would be over 100k.

The name was a combination of homage to the famous Joan Jett song, and the French word for 'darling.' It also reminded him of the lovely colour characteristic of the alcohol sharing a similarly sounding name. People sometimes forgot Yamato was part French on his grandfather's side.

Yamato was all about trying not to think too much. Like yesterday. Yesterday didn't need thoughts too much. Said thought process led him to alternate between playing the line for Bach's Toccata and Fugue and a simple three-finger galloping. His drummer once raised a valid point by mentioning how calling the action this way was weird because, unless it was inspired by three legged horses, the name insinuated it should be done with four fingers.

Yamato's mind drifted off in funny ways when it was just him and Cheri, and his fingers were improvising tunes which belonged to an uncomplicated realm. Sometimes they'd stop being tunes and become the medium between him and the abstract feel of something, or a mood. Not things which can be described, but maybe they could inspire.

Taichi used to be a pest about wanting to play, so Yamato tried teaching him the basics once – on Yamato's old acoustic of course. No one was allowed to touch his baby with their slimy hands.

After Yamato almost stabbed Taichi's thumb with barber scissors after it popped over the neck for the gazillionth time, Taichi gave up. _"Taichi, imagine you are a t-rex holding a big fluffy dog. No, better, imagine you are Greymon holding a Garurumon!"_ It wasn't that hard, was it?

They laughed for half an hour and any further attempt at tutoring underwent the heinous act of defenestration.

Yamato ended up practicing technique with Rush's YYZ all the way till sundown, slapping those ghost notes. A good few hours spent lost in a personalized universe of awesome soundtrack.

His practice at circumventing the banal beats of his day was cut short when the phone alarm resonated with the sub-cultural phenomenon which was Iggy Pop's strained tenor, blurting 'Now I Wanna Be Your Dog' all over the bedroom. It also kindly informed him it was already seven PM and he can afford to look more presentable.

First things first, though, he replaced the old water in the plastic bowl standing outside the building for a fresher serving. It was for the neighbourhood's stray cats; so they could slake their thirst. It was so bloody hot and the wee ones needed a refreshing lifeline too.

Next step – rummaging through his wardrobe for a skinny button-down shirt and a pair of equally snug-fitting jeans. He was opting for that Patti Smith look on the cover of 'Horses'.

Lastly, he took out the remains of the Johnnie Walker and Nihonshu Sora bought last week, threw in some more heavy-duty drinks and prepared Taichi's Red Tuborg pack along with Lager cans and a Laphroaig – because over the years, Taichi has developed a taste for booze flavoured like a burnt ship at sea and pencil shavings.

Not that they couldn't become master drunkards within the hour, but for the underage kiddies Yamato added an assortment of sodas creams, which he put on the birch wood counter on the second floor.

All he had to do now was wait and he resumed jamming, killing the already dead time.

At eight sharp, the doorbell's buzz clamoured through the house. Yamato dashed downstairs as though someone shoved a porcupine under his arse – can't relieve the boredom a minute too soon.

"Coming!" he reassured whoever stood at the other side of the door, mostly out of a self-serving habit since he doubted anyone could hear him this far up.

"Why didn't you use the spare key and let yourself in?"

Despite his carefully cultivated cool front, Yamato was pleased as punch to have Jyou, one of his oldest friends – who he hasn't seen in ages – over. He loved Jyou. Everyone loved Jyou. How can someone _not_ love Jyou?

"And walk in on you do whatever it is nutters like you do? No thank you, sir!" Jyou said in mock horror before reaching for his bag and foraging it for hidden goods.

He extracted a rectangular clip of brownish paper strips with the title 'RAW – Organic Rolling Papers' printed on top and deposited it in Yamato's hands.

The ironically non-smoking Jyou answered the question Yamato didn't even get to peeps about yet.

"The store under your house ran out of Rizla. Yes, I know," He added the last part after being struck with silent shock Yamato didn't hide on time, all the way to micro-expressions involving his eyebrows going missing in his hairline. Well, that wasn't so micro and in Yamato's terms, it was pretty macro. Still amusing in its own right.

Thousand silent queries – none which Yamato managed uttering. First one – just how bad things had got down that bastard shop they ran out of normal rolling paper brands? This wasn't the most minted neighbourhood but paper shouldn't be a luxury either. The second thing he was questioning was the presence of 'Organic' on the title and whether or not it was redundant. Weren't all papers organic by virtue of being ex-trees?

"As long as it burns and doesn't stink up the house more than usual."

Soon after, a line of shoes decorated his entryway and a chatty stream of zonked, yet content, friends trudged its way into the first floor of his flat. All of whom were ready to get erased with gratuitous amounts of good ol' _whatever_ and delete the passing week from their minds. Bury it somewhere around R'lyeh, where they won't have to deal with its ramifications till the next week.

After what happened three years ago, they unanimously decided to make an effort to see each other more often. When they succeeded, Yamato's lair was where their sense of adulthood went to die on a Friday night. Usually, it strung their self-dignity along. They just wanted to get as many kicks as they could while beauty and youth were on their side.

This Friday in particular was the first weekend of August. This Friday, today, had been nominated for, and has democratically won, being the annual date dedicated to celebrating the anniversary of their Digital adventure. Ergo, everyone put in a special effort to be present – no matter how hard it was to get them together in one place nowadays.

Koushiro, Sora, and Mimi arrived together in Sora's car, five minutes after Jyou, knees deep in plastic containers full of health food.

In turn, they were followed by Yamato's beloved little brother and Taichi's beloved little sister. Both entered flushed and cheerful, the colours of youth splashed on their cheeks. Yet Yamato couldn't rid himself of this itch he had, pointing out Hikari hadn't looked him in the eye when she greeted him and Takeru's sunnier disposition still wasn't quite up to key.

Yamato nudged his sand-haired brother to enter the kitchen with him, under the pretence of needing help with serving the copious amounts of food Mimi brought in.

After almost three years of arguing with her parents about her future career, Mimi agreed to study a 'real occupation.' Yamato never imagined Mimi's pixies-for-parents would put any boundaries on her, but there it was. Since this is Mimi though, who didn't acknowledge "no" as a viable option between her and her goals, her "yes" was preconditioned. Her mum and dad were to get a ladder and climb off her back when she'd finally go and realise her dream of studying gastronomy afterwards.

So she went for chemistry. Her faculty, Avogadro, was one flight of stairs and a car park below Yamato's – Einstein-Rosen. A name which probably insinuated some super sophisticated joke about the bridges occupying the physics building's architecture. A stupid kind of "Haha" only elitist physics anoraks got – which, in all fairness, the majority of the university's population consisted of, anyway. There, even Yamato got it; now he was an elitist anorak too.

"So…" he started when Takeru was in the middle of depositing long strands of low-fat vegetable soba into a bowl, "you alright?"

"I'm alright," came the absent-minded reply which implied the complete opposite about the speaker.

"Are you?"

Yamato's undertone was a clear-cut implication he knew bloody well nothing was "alright" but wanted to give Takeru a fair chance for confessing. _Before_ Yamato made a spectacle out of it and turned things ugly.

Other than Taichi, his brother was the only person Yamato could read. At least good enough to tell when Takeru was bogged down by something. They were also the only ones whose emotions he could handle.

So when did Takeru start lying to him? Treating him like he was just another adult?

Right now, the younger half knew what kind of look he was getting without meeting the penetrating blue gaze, so much like his own yet so endlessly different.

"It's not that something's wrong, per se… I just wanted to discuss things with you later. When the house got less crowded, you know…"

"Now. Talk."

"Yamato…"

"Hikari?"

The pink halo which washed over his brother's cheeks was all the validation Yamato needed.

"Well, we are already on the topic, so…" Takeru let the sentence trail off while he was lowering a tray of pasties to the oven to keep them warm, trusting Yamato to complete it by himself. "We are almost seventeen. We want sex. Getting it off through our knickers is getting pretty old." His voice dropped straight into his shame, "and I'm running out of non-crusted boxers..."

Yamato turned around to scan his brother; marvel at how grown-up and mature he has become. His tousled, wheat-hued hair, the dimples under his cheeks that could contain half of the Pacific each, the freckles peppering the bridge of his nose. Take as much of him in as possible, right now, before it was too late and he became too old for comfort. Carve his image, as it is, at this precious moment, straight into his heart.

For Yamato, Takeru will always be eight.

"And you want… what? My blessing? A card? If it's about condoms, you can take from my drawer, but I'm pretty sure mum keeps a pack over at your house. Had one under the bed last time I visited, anyway. She won't get fussy 'bout sparing one. If it's about a place – feel at home."

Takeru smiled with such honesty, he almost did become his eight year old self again and circled his arms around his older brother.

"I still love you most."

Takeru glanced up to see the familiar result of what was, in part, his honest truth and, in part, his favourite tease – right there, in the rigidity of Yamato's neck-craning . Not quite as prone to hilarious embarrassment as he was several years back, though. Now, Yamato hugged him back and ruffled his hairs with a quiet, "I love you too."

Still, Takeru will never get tired of it.

"But that's not it," he said when he released Yamato from the hug, making sure they were face to face. "I… _we_ wanted to ask you to check with Taichi how he feels about it without telling him it's already on the table. I mean, we will probably wanna do it at their place… and there will be noises… and Taichi coming in on me banging his sister with my arse up in the air will make dinner conversation bloody awkward."

"Are you shitting me? It will make it bloody hilarious."

"Come on! How awesome will it be if we could just give him a heads up every time we wanted to go at it and he could just… you know… _'evacuate the premises' ._ " Takeru formed aerial apostrophes with his fingers, moving them up and down to emphasize his point.

"Takeru, I don't lie to him. Besides, it's between you two virgins and no one else. Go, fuck, and never tell me about it again."

"But-"

"Taichi couldn't care less what you two are doing. I've never seen him act obnoxiously clingy about his baby sister no longer needing him to change her nappies, and he never gave her special treatment as a Chosen just because she's his sister. Have some faith in our lovable numpty."

Takeru _still_ gave him a pitiful look, all but screaming 'save me!', and Yamato gave up. "Tell you what: we can sit, all four of us, with a solid bottle of uncle Jack Taichi loves so much, and if there'll be problems – I'll talk to him. Fair?"

"Thank you! You are beautiful, brother!"

"Also…"

Yamato's grip hindered Takeru when he turned to leave, and he got slapped on the back of his head before having a complimentary plate of baked chips shoved into his hands.

"Don't you ever, EVER lie to me again!" But a smile creased around Yamato's eyes when he said it.

Next to show on Yamato's doorstep were the younger protégés – Daisuke, Miyako, Iori, and Ken. The last member on the roll-call delivered a small baggy of herbal happiness straight into Yamato's expectant palms.

As per always, last to come was Tardy Taichi, with that crooked grin at the hems of his lips.

There was no point in waiting for him since he always let himself in anyway.

He was all proper chuffed, probably from some 'good times' with that cute brunette girl from the match.

Yamato couldn't be more aching to say, 'I'm glad you had fun with your genitals, blud.' But at the same time, he didn't want to think about it so much. Focus – just focus on that excitement he hated and loved, but had to bury.

"Oi! Taichi!"

Taichi beamed at him – "Yamato!" – while being pinned with a blue which secretly spelled, 'AAAAYYY! You got your pee-pee place touched!' That's how Taichi's brain translated it, anyway. Yamato will never say it like that. Taichi'd have to revisit this notion tomorrow morning, but at this very moment it was uber-funny to him and he convulsed in a mad fit as though his privates got zapped. No one knew him like Yamato.

That's what Yamato strived for. Getting these reactions out of Taichi was what he lived for on the weekends. Just like Taichi always made Yamato respond to _him_ since they were kids. If that _damn_ tree was right about one thing, it was about how huge Taichi became – how did he say it? In Yamato's _heart_? Yeah, well, that was a pretty rainbow-flagged thing to say. True though.

Anyway, Yamato also derived a simple kind of joy from hearing Taichi's laughter. Taichi had some fantastically low and sexy laughs. And when he laughs, his whole face crumples up. It's great.

 _This_ one wasn't one of those, though. _This_ one was just him in the mood for being brain-dead with credentials and as dumb as a brick today. Lucky for him, his looks more than compensated for it.

Really, some of the things Yamato wanted to do to him were positively illegal. In some countries – for sure.

Takeru glanced over at Yamato, trying to telepathically remind him what he promised. Yamato nodded and pointed with his chin towards Hikari. This took place while Taichi was busy grinning with guilt aplenty and smacking his eyes with his palm – like it would help his denial any.

All three got up, ready to welcome the last member of their jolly crew, together. Yamato was armed with shot glasses in one hand and whisky in the other, but still managed to greet his mate with their traditional fist-bump.

While they migrated to his room, Yamato wouldn't stop staring at the white T Taichi wore and how it was a bit too tight around his silhouette. It was accentuating his bulging abdominals and really emphasizing his filled-out triceps.

 _'_ _Fucking hot…'_

Not to mention how the athletic muscles on his back and shoulders were converging in perfect proportion into his midsection. Or how his folded jeans rode low and hung just _right_ around his hips and that little, round booty. He had a quietly powerful type of body.

 _'_ _Damdee-damdee-damdee-damdee-damn – sexy Taichi tush'_

No doubt, if there is one thing that can transform Yamato into an irredeemable, non-convertible slobbering pile of human garbage – it was Taichi.

All in all, it went well. Better than Hikari and Takeru anticipated and pretty much the way Yamato predicted.

Taichi didn't keep too many secrets from Hikari but, just in case, Yamato spared them the gory details of Taichi's oral misadventures. What a big, fat hypocrite Taichi'd be if he decided _now_ was a good time to start moralizing about abstinence, though, eh?

Obviously – he didn't. Taichi was being the brilliant epitome of his smart, compassionate, sweet self and Yamato just wanted to-

"You know, you can stop acting like we are in some American sitcom. Whatever perverted kinks you have are better lived out in the safety of our houses, rather than in a gross love hotel or fuck knows where." He combed his wild array of hair with his fingers and with an adoring smile set on his sister. "I should be so lucky it's with someone I know and trust."

Why anyone thought he'd be worked up about it was beyond Taichi. Of course he was protective of Hika and will always be there for her, but part of doing it properly was to give her space to grow up as an individual and make her own mistakes.

"Besides, if you can save the world fighting digital monsters, you can bonk as nature ordained us humans to. Just stay the fuck away from my bed."

1) I took a few liberties with Odaiba's topography as well as with its cultural nature for the sake of giving the place the type of ambiance I desire. In reality, Odaiba is flat.

2) Ainu and Zainichi are types of minorities in Japan.

3) Alice Cooper – famous musician from the metal and hard rock scene.

4) quintas and tri-tones – types of intervals in musical theory.

5) Diogenes of Sinope – with a short quote from wiki: "Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynic philosophy" (move to chapter 9)

6) Miyamoto Musashi – a remarkable swordsman and ronin, who later went and wrote "The Book of Five Rings", a literary work concerning strategy and tactics. He was renowned for employing all sorts of unorthodox tactics that unnerved his opponents, like arriving late to a duel and the likes.

7) 1969 Fender Mustang – I chose to give Yamato the bass he had in 02. The bass he has in tri is a Sting Signature bass – which is not a particularly good one. Now, unless this was intended as someone's clever way of telling the audience Yamato is huge fan of old-school punk (which I think he is regardless), I am almost certain this was a mistake on part of the writers' of tri, since the outer design of the two instruments looks exactly the same. What they got wrong, however – were the pick-ups. The Mustang has a double set of Pick-ups that are arranged differently on the body (one below the other), while the Sting Signature has only one set. As tiny a difference as it may appear aesthetically-wise, the sound produced from the bass will be completely different and will set the difference between the Mustang – an overall quality piece – and the Sting – not so much. Ideally, I would have wanted Yamato to have a Fender Precision. For the reasons mentioned in the story, I also believe he inherited his bass from his father. This particular mustang Yamato has is a real vintage and is worth a small fortune nowadays.

8) Joan Jett – key figure in punk.

9) Three-finger galloping – a technique to play bass.

10) Patti Smith - otherwise known as the grandmother of punk music.

11) Laphroaig – a type of high-percentage whisky.

12) R'lyeh – a little wink-wink at H.P. Lovecraft. R'lyehis where cthulu lays slumbering.

13) The Einstein-Rosen Bridge – a wormhole if you'd like. Since this is how the Chosen Children originally traveled to Digital world, I thought it made a nice addition.


	6. Chapter 6

h2 style="margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 6: /spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; color: black; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"You're Mad to burn, Mad to fly, Mad to be saved. Mad to burn, Mad to cry, Mad to run and Mad to fly. You're Mad to burn and Mad to/spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" span style="background: white;"die, Mad to stay away./span/span/h2  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"There is a peculiar, yet almost natural, occurrence which transpires every single time a sufficient number of students gather in one place: school work talk. Everyone compares the implausible amount of dump their respective universities take on style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"With the way they were going at it, an innocent spectator might have gotten the impression they were veterans of the armed forces. Exchanging stories from their time in the service – all about wars fought in deep trenches along cold, foreign lands. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"If anyone asked for Yamato's opinion, though, he'd argue that trying to solve Partial Differential Equations for wavelengths at one past midnight, before a hand-in, fuelled with only three hours of sleep, ten rounds of coffee, and no toilet paper whatsoever, made the two factually one and the same. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It was true for Taichi as well, whose aviation school required his faculty to bombard him with a summary of thirty articles titled 'Systems of the Law in Ancient Greece as the Origins of Democracy.' The things he'll do to sit in a cockpit and make jet-engine noises. Speaking of long-lost childhoods. But it suited him to a T./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Life's an unfathomable pit of bollocks when you're a uni student, inni't? Unless your name is Koushiro Izumi – the bastard. If your name is Koushiro Izumi, you are a genius software engineer who's been a head-boy four semesters in a row thus far, holding the position of highest ranking student in T uni. If your name is Koushiro Izumi, there are more companies begging for you on their knees than hormones in a 13 year old who's just seen his first pair of boobs. Also, your degree is paying for itself by now. Cheers! /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"After toasting to bad decisions and relaxed moral values, they were all floored, laughing like gigantic stupids./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #f79646; mso-themecolor: accent6; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span"…and then they brought the inflatable boat!" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato specifically was lying on the floor next to Taichi while being clingy with the carpet, chocking, and crying. His ribs were screaming from the pressure his contracting muscles put on his chest and abs. Every time he attempted an intake of air, another ripple of wild laughter mounted into a tsunami in his throat, knocking him back down. How he managed to pop himself another beer halfway through was a mystery for the ages./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Mimi was wiping tears away, howling so hard she probably snapped an ovary./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""And somehow, that's the em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"normal /emattraction compared with the time Google imported an entire salon to the middle of the promenade. It looked like a psychologist's group therapy room more than anything, really," Jyou said after having regained some meagre measure of control over his convulsing body. But the statement had triggered another fit./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Well, the two things that place could really use are good counselling therapists and stress-management classes," Mimi chipped and moved her died-to-purple Ombre hair past her shoulder with an elegant flick of her wrist. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Are you thinking about that bloke who topped himself from Cauchy's roof?" Yamato asked, "heard it was mashed-potato nasty," and after a second something hit the back of his head. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He searched for the source of the transgression and met Taichi's disapproving, thick eyebrows, which were contradicted some by the comical lines rimming his eyes. Thing is with Taichi's eyes – they were some bog-standard brown every second nobody on the street had. Taichi just made them outstanding, like liquor or rum, with his 'Taichi' force. To Yamato at least – sadly, pathetically enough. But there are times to appreciate Taichi's organs and there are times to hurt style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""What?!" Yamato barked at him./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Yamato, I know you're dependent on that 'miserable misanthrope' vibe of yours to live, but subtlety is em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"not/em the enemy, yeah?" Mimi said with a pretty pout to hint she was only half-serious./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"In turn, Yamato was only half-apologetic when he grunted and shrugged and went all fussy-baby mood, but somehow that earned him a placated Taichi./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Enjoy your first semester, mate!" Daisuke elbowed Ken's ribs./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The young prodigy will start his first year in electrical engineering along with Yamato and the others come October, and combine it with his regular school curriculum. All the students amongst his friends had already found the time to spare him their little pearls of wisdom and experience, describing in great detail how much the mincer loved its fresh meat./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""If I recall correctly, there actually is a stress management course," Koushiro reminded them, veering the conversation in a less morbid direction./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Really? What are the requirements?" Mimi turned to him, almost one head taller./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""From what I gathered, you have to hand in some huge essay at the end of it."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Silence./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Another wave of howling laughter dissolved the upper floor of Yamato's apartment. This time enhanced by the joined voices of his friends for whom the almost-satirical situation didn't go unnoticed. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Not fair! How come we never have career fairs? Or any events? At all?" Taichi crossed his arms on his chest, making a show out of sulking, after coming down from the high. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Because you are completely covered when you graduate?" Sora offered, "and what are you even complaining about? You had perfect scores last semester."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Oh, Taichi, luv, you heard nothing yet! Listen to this one…" Mimi chirped, dominating the undivided attention of everyone in the room. em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"'I missed them all so much,' /emshe confided to herself. She, Koushiro, and Yamato tried meeting for breakfasts at their uni's café several times, but their schedules clashed, so she wasn't even able to see her fellow students often enough./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Once assured she ruled imperious over the spotlight, she cleared her throat. "So, I had this anatomy course, yes? And we were scheduled to perform an autopsy and dissect human reproductive organs." she glanced around the circle, observing her friends' expressions, making sure the topic captivated them enough, and continued. "So, we enter the classroom, greeted by our formaldehyde-stuffed patients who are lying on the tables and are… well… you know… all post-mortem and what have you – by the way, did you know they cover the faces and hands of the corpses so you won't see them?"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Really? I get the face part but why the hands?" Takeru asked./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Jyou beat Mimi to the punch and answered, "most case studies show that hands are body parts which are perceived as too 'intimate' for people. It's hard to remove parts from someone you feel attached to without getting chunks of breakfast on the floor two seconds later."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Yeep, can I continue now? Great! So anyway, we start with the female and you know, cut the clitoris, vagina, labia, ovaries, womb… the whole shebang!" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"While she felt guilty for forgetting those who aren't used to 'Stories from the Lab' can get uneasy in the tummy area, she was getting pretty priceless reactions. What with the girls fidgeting in discomfort, particularly Hikari who crossed both of her hands over her lap. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"On the flip side, the guys looked like the unwitting victims of gastric juices being wedged up their gums. Well, everyone barring Jyou, who removed brains from test subjects during his first attempted internship, a very short-lived staj, in the pathological institute. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Then we move on to the male corpse and… we got us a minor problem." She took an overdramatic pause and wiggled her eyebrows at them for the full effect. "The penis is missing in action."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Again – silence./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Do elaborate." Koushiro recovered from her statement before anyone else and peered at her –/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanstill plenty disturbed./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Mimi laughed, a chime of silvery voice. "Not much to say. There was no penis where one was supposed to be. I've no idea where it went and, honestly, don't really feel like finding out." /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""So…" Taichi concluded, "what you're saying is… someone em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"stole/em a penis?" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Yup."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""From a corpse?"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""That's right."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Oi, Guys! Can we please stop talking about bleeding baby-makers and them coming off?!" Daisuke shrieked. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Come on, Dai, it's not like anyone is interested in nicking yours," Yamato said, though the image of someone running around campus, armed with a decomposing prick, was something he, too, could live style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Miyako /spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"had been surveying /spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"all her older friends for a while now. They were all so mature now – so calm about their lives. Like they knew where they were heading and pushed with full throttle onwards. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanJealous much? Yap! She hadn't sat with everyone like this for a while. Not even with Iori. What, with her going out with some 'Haru' or 'Hiro' every Thursday and Friday for quite a time style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanHer mum was being so pushy on the subject; it's not like Miyako was gonna get married in high school or anything, and she had five other siblings to do that before her! /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"As far as time for herself was concerned – what a laughem style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;". /emNot only did she not do mixing for Yamato's band any longer, but just opening the command line interface on Linux became an impossible goal./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"When she em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"was/em around, they were either watching the latest release or splitting into smaller groups of conversation. Ultimately, she started missing them; they somehow changed around her and she needed to re-learn who they were. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It was high time they had a proper bonding night. All of them. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Hey!" She yelled over any other conversation going on, "you know what could be real' smashing? A good ol' fashioned game of 'Never'!"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Oh my gosh! Yes!"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"God, Miyako loved Mimi, always and forever. She's a todger dodger for Mimi – for real! No matter how long it's been, Mimi is always Mimi, and once Mimi got hyped over an idea, there was no way to persuade her to shift to reverse and back down from it. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"With various degrees of agreement – ranging from exasperated moans of resignation to playful claps cheering for the nostalgic, primary school pastimeem style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;" –span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/emall the Chosen rallied together in a circular sitting formation for the game. A game which was a mere excuse to extort information out of people and hail vengeance upon them for having dared to venture out of their house and live a little. All that draped by a sugar-coated title to pass under the radar of adults./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""All right. You start." Taichi nodded at Miyako with his chin./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Let me think…" Miyako wagged her finger in front of her nose; some odd gesture indicating she was contemplating her move. It was such an unnatural way for the body to react, Yamato wondered if she spent one hour too many in front of cartoons and tried imitating them./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Miyako chose her words with tweezer-like precision, trying to be as inclusive as possible to minimize the finger count in the air, crunching her numbers./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""I guess I never really fancied anyone? Never really felt anything intense towards someone, you know?"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""That counts as two Nevers, you cheat. Can we just say you were never in love?" Koushiro simplified./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Miyako chewed on her cheek before sticking her tongue out at Koushiro. "Yes sir!"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Sora and Mimi showed their friend pouty faces of sympathy and folded their thumbs, but not without Mimi telling her, "you just be you, Mia. You don't need anything like that to be happy." Along with Yamato, Koushiro, Jyou, Takeru Hikari – who exchanged nauseating, saccharine looks suffused with teenage sexuality. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi himself, who shared Miyako's boat for this round of 'Never', studied the rest of his more experienced mates. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Mimi and Michael used to date – so this one was obvious; almost as obvious as Koushiro's crush on her. Jyou had a girlfriend since high school. In the meanwhile, Taichi tried his best to remove any thoughts of his younger sister in compromising positions before his mind bleached itself. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"But… Yamato?/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"Twat not telling me shit again?'/em/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Being best friends didn't mean they updated each other on every single one of their farts. They were individuals with separate lives. Why Yamato wouldn't be inclined to go anywhere near this issue wasn't about to wow Taichi's world. No, what drove Taichi mad was putting Yamato and this specific topic in the same radius out of nowhere. It was more awkward than the forty-seven minute talk they had about the shapes their number twos made in the toilet, which evolved from Yamato sending Taichi a sample of his new song. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Maybe Taichi em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"was/em more upset about this than he had a right to be, but it's not like he can tell himself not to. em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"'Fuck you, Yama.'/em/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"This Yamato, right here, who grew up with his parents' divorce screwing him from either side, didn't believe in things like falling in love, or even em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"friendship/em. Until he did, and then he was terrified of them. Or of intimacy. em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"Real/em intimacy. More scared than anyone Taichi knew. And Taichi got it. Love was style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"So what's with this em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"now/em? When did Yama press the 'On' button?/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Mmm… Sora?'/span/emspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" Yamato had his small share of crushes – popular guy and all – but she was the only one with whom he had become seriously involved./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Back in the day, Yamato acted absolutely infatuated with her. He made a production every time the need to declare his feelings jumped him. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Somehow, it didn't seem relevant to this case, though. While they were still perfectly chuffed about being friends, any trace of the whole boyfriend-girlfriend gig had gone stale after less than a year. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"When Yamato talked to Taichi after the break up, he seemed relieved. That period in his life was apparently insanely weird for him because he agreed to date her mostly out of a warped sense of obligation. He said he em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"wanted/em to feel passionate about her, that he em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"thought/em he was in love with her at some point – but that he confused his emotions with something else. Eventually, Yamato got too exhausted from trying to make himself feel what wasn't there and overcompensating for it. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Then there was also that other issue. At some point, Yamato realised being with her as a girlfriend was too disturbingly much like having his own twisted Oedipus complex – with motherly Sora being the compensation for the real mother he didn't get to experience style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"That somewhat killed off the option of Sora being Yamato's secret heartthrob. Considering Yamato couldn't be bothered to trifle with monogamy since either, Taichi concluded dating her may have put Yamato off the concept for good. Or that Yamato was bad at it to begin with. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Calculating according to Yamato's current mood, Taichi figured he could afford asking. As soon as it was Iori's turn, Taichi leaned into Yamato's ear to ask, semi-casually, "Sora?"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Blue rings flickered at him from the corner of Yamato's sockets before retreating to their middlemost point and back to the game. Didn't say much, but it was enough to let Taichi know how wrong his guess was. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yup – not anything there to be gobsmacked about; did pique his interest in Yamato's romantic Joe or Jane Bloggs, though. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"But Yamato was off. His thumb, jittery index, and middle finger were plucking the strings of an imaginary bass under Taichi's knee, where no one else could see them, and his back was massively style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""You're uncomfortable. Yama…"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Yamaem style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"to,/em and em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"drop it/em. I actually have things in my life that don't concern you."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato's stupid propensity to go from hot to cold faster than a broken shower head in Kamchatka when it was completely unwarranted was all the cement Taichi needed for his conviction to deliver a regal beat-up to Yamato's nether regions. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Something soft, yet also rough, brushed against the back of Taichi's hand, though, in a blink–and–miss sort of barely-being-there kind of way. When he turned, registering Yamato's thumb departing from his hand, he met much more – placid? – eyes than the absolute-zero he got earlier./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Sorry, I… Sorry," Yamato said. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi made their hands meet again between them. "What's with you?"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato shook his head. "I didn't feel like getting frilly…" He clicked his fingers a few times and started tapping on his knee. "It's not that I wanted this to be a secret."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Squirming around the subject – in front of its oblivious object no less – instead of resorting to his preferable outlet of brute force was making Yamato mentally haggard./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""It's a dead-end, anyway – that's all. I don't see the point in bothering you with every bit of useless rubbish in my life, Taichi."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""You only bother me when I don't know what's going on through that crapper between your ears."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""All sorts of shit." /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Both sniggered at the lame pun like morons, trying to get their attention back into the circle. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi let it drop and stopped poking. Yamato kept his words too vague and too short on purpose and Taichi respected his steadfast determination to avoid having lies between them. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""I've never kissed a girl," the youngest of the bunch admitted. All the guys dropped a finger. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"As well as Sora. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"This one got her some neat spotlight, coupled with a leering Daisuke, who nestled his hands behind his head and whistled. When he leaned forward to address the lesbian elephant in the room, she turned an interesting shade of red which matched the drapes and "None of your business!"-'ed before he so much as emitted a sound./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Well then… Our little group sure is hitting all colours of the rainbow, innit?" Taichi said, earning his very own swat from Yamato./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"During Daisuke's turn – to whom Yamato referred to as a 'em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"looks like a/em em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"Taichi expy – only not' /emin his head – the boy grew uncharacteristically quiet. He folded his arms around his knees, rendering himself as small as possible. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"For a brief few seconds, Yamato considered nudging Jyou to inspect the kid, but Daisuke seemed to be avoiding his scrutiny in particular. "I… never really liked my sister. I mean… I kinda feel like I love her 'cause I have to. 'Cause she popped from the same cunt I did. Not because I want to." /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"While listening to him, Yamato replayed in his head how hard he yelled at Daisuke for giving Jun grief back when they first style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Who would have thought Daisuke has so much hidden depth? Woe to the world for the end is nigh.'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Can we use 'siblings' instead of 'sister' for this one?" Koushiro suggested. "Otherwise we are rather limited"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Daisuke nodded./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato, Taichi, Takeru, Hikari, Ken, Miyako, and Jyou all folded down another finger from their thinning arsenal. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Ken weaved the fingers of his non-counting hand in Daisuke's, tugging Daisuke's arm towards the small space between them. With one smile, he was unleashing Daisuke from his improvised shell. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He turned to inspect the centre of the Chosen ring, taking in 22 eyes which were magnetized to his face. Did they think he was about to jump from a wedding cake wearing a sour lollipop knickers on his balls? /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span"I've never been on a plane," Ken said./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"How anti-climactic. Yamato bit off a grin. He didn't know why. Ken's sharp wit had that effect on him. Pride?/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Ken was also pretty. Sometimes, Yamato wondered… but – no. The boy was too complex for Yamato to take in; too damaged. Too much like Yamato himself, only taken up to eleven. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato had precious little happiness in his life, and he was not about to start spreading around what amount he had. Talking wasn't his forte and he didn't like doing it. At best, he'd give Ken an inconsequential pat on the back and second-rate empathy – then they'd call it a day. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Nuh, that's rubbish. Yamato wasn't the peppiest one in the bunch, but he was Ken's comrade and would have made himself useful if he had anything smart to contribute. Smartest thing he could say was 'it's life. It's shit,' and that's not anything. He may as well keep his hatch shut. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Ken needed someone different from him. Someone as happy and as carefree as the boy's idiot of a best friend. Someone so passionate about living, he would give Ken the energy he needed to exist – a brilliant sun. So Ken, too, could become a brilliant sun. Someone who could find a ray of light even when a hurricane raised havoc through a children's hospital, blowing their little crutches away./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Just like Yamato needed… 'em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"Fuck it./em em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"The sun-burst shape of the Crest of Courage suits them both.' /emBecause the both of them belonged to a kingdom under the style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;" 'And me and Ken are pagans.'/em/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Only Iori and Mimi lowered digits to this style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It was Mimi's turn, and she shot out her Never so fast she must have come ready with a checklist before the night even started./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""I never gave a blow-job! Michael's thingy-dingy was way too yuck."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Well… shit.' /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The way Mimi managed to combine the pornographic scenario with her choice of childish vocabulary would have crept the bejesus out of him, if Yamato hadn't had his entire stomach tying into scouts-level./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato kind of hoped to go through his life as a young adult without his friends hearing about his knob-related exploits. Should he just lie? It was just some fucking game for fuckwits and virgins and he didn't own shit to anyone. But, he didn't want to lie to Taichi either – which was royally shite./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Back against the wall, a spliff between his lips, Yamato inhaled the last of his juicy sativa; the catalyst of his blessed opiated state was vanquished into brocaded wisps of smoke. He threw the remains of the crutch into the cracked water mug he kept around to reduce the nasty smell. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The tiny vortex it created, along with the burnt residues of swirling cinder, had mesmerized him, almost causing vertigo. In that infinitesimal time frame, it was the most interesting physical phenomenon in the cosmos./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Dejected, Yamato lowered his fourth finger the same time Sora dropped hers./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Since, as far as Yamato remembered, Sora hadn't been introduced to that part of him, he met her eyes with his head hanging askew and mutely mouthed a question about the lucky bloke. Or lucky girl, for all he knew. She shook her head at him and replaced it with a 'you're one to talk' glarespan style="color: red;". /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Mimi squealed to high-heaven. "Oh my fucking god, Yamato, who?! Yo-"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: HE;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Before Yamato shoved a gag-ball down her mouth, Taichi /spanspan style="mso-bidi-language: HE;"cut her off/spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;". /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""What are you, the Cock-Control Patrol? It's none of yours, Meems."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Bugger off! Some guy got your em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"boyfriend's /emarse reamed – I wanna know who! Are-" She paused her rant and re-examined Taichi as if she was about to replace her dick-less corpse from earlier with his. "Was it you?!"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato had no idea how that conversation ended because he tuned out, turning Taichi's and Mimi's argument into a white noise, and the world can burn. When he moved his face away, something was drilling into his skull. Instinctively, he looked over to Taichi and was gobsmacked to meet curious amber eyes transfixed on him so intently and completely. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The confusion which contorted his features, mixed with his innate 'need-to-know-now-pretty-please!' ways, made Taichi look like someone had withheld his potty rights for a week. He was about to burst any second now from the urinary build-up./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It got on Yamato's nerves. "Yeah, I sucked a cock. I also go to bed with men and fuck them sometimes. So? Hypocrite…" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi went serious in an instant. "Will you calm down…?" He talked slowly, quietly and purposefully, punctuating the words. He didn't need Yamato's confidence issues bullshit being vented out on him. Taichi vigorously shook his head, making it very explicit he had no fucking qualms – or interest –with Yamato's choice of bed partners, their identity, gender, or anything else regarding em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"that/em aspect of the style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato counted to ten and unwound some. "Sorry…" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"But so what? Knowing Taichi, he'll be over it in a second and blitz Yamato with questions about whatever it is he em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"did/em want to know. Not that Yamato will have much to tell him. It's not like he was dating different men every other week – or at all – so there wasn't anything to say. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""How come you never told me about that before?"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'And there we go.'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/emspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""I didn't tell anyone about it, Taichi. Weren't exactly my proudest moments."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""I tell you all about my blow-jobs!"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Who said I em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"want/em to hear about your bloody blow-jobs?!" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi pretended to pout, nudged Yamato with his foot, and employed the kind of sorry, pathetic look an animal gets when it's begging for scraps from the table./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal; tab-stops: 132.75pt;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"To a lesser degree it was also true to the rest of his friends whose wide eyes were begging him for gossip like a flock or reporters from the E channel. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Takeru tried slapping on a poker face, but he just looked like an animated question mark. em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"Stiffly /emanimated question mark./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato loved his friends to death but, as far as his sex life was concerned, their prodding into his personal affairs was a pain in the caboose. He would have followed suit with Sora's 'don't kiss and tell' policy – but then there was Taichi, with his stupid, drop-dead-gorgeous smile. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'And/span/emspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"I bloody hate how soft he makes me. How can someone who's able to regress into the emotional fluctuation of a potato achieve /emthatem style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"?!'/em/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Whatever. It's not like I care."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"A grin on Taichi. em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"'He totally cares.'/em/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Didn't mean Yamato had to fetch crayons and draw a diagram for them, though. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Look, I'm in the music industry. Sometimes you need to do a favour to receive a favour."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Like?" Taichi stretched the word in the most immature, high pitched tone he could produce from his neck, being as much as an arse as he could bring himself to be. "Come on, Yama – too late to be shy about it now." /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He couldn't help it; provoking Yamato was his second favourite hobby after football. Extra points if he got Yamato to blush. And, yeah, Taichi heard all the tabloid gossip already. He just hadn't seen a reason to confront Yamato every single time a group of wankers decided to chat shit about him or spew verbal diarrhoea from their facial hatches. Whoever Yamato brought into his bed was not Taichi's business. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"When Yamato told Taichi he was attracted to men, it was obvious to Taichi more than theory was involved. Well, actually, Yamato didn't straight out say the words "attracted to men". He just said he "wasn't anything". He was Yamato. Just Yamato. It was up to Taichi to translate it and understand what Yamato meant. em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"'I'm gonna know/em.' /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Hearing about any of this in reality was very different, though. Taichi wasn't delusional enough to hope Yamato would divulge all the graphic details, but he thought he'll be notified when Yamato got some. Nope; Yamato was as tight-lipped about it as Taichi's realistic side anticipated. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato growled at the back his throat and rose to the bait. "Like a fucking blow-job in exchange for a fucking contract with one of the biggest fucking record labels in the fucking country! It's not bloody rocket science, Taichi!"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Alright, fine – it did bother Taichi; made him bloody awkward actually. An uncomfortable rock formed in his abdomen. Yamato was outstanding – no doubt about it; he was a skilled cook and juggled between his studies, his band, and housework. But he wasn't always the best when it came to taking care of himself. Not where it mattered most. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"For Taichi, Yamato sold himself too cheaply style="color: red;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Not like Taichi was one to talk, though. He couldn't go blaming someone for charging a fee over what they would normally do for free. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"So, he was going to take care of Yamato when Yamato wouldn't do it for himself. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Hey, we all do what we need to, right?" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Fantastic. Bland as fuck. For Pete's sake, this is Yamato/span/emspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"– the same person you fart and burp with after a night of pub-crawling. His lack of selectivity regarding the contents of his mouth will never change that.'/em/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi fisted Yamato's shoulder with regained vigour. "I think your work is brilliant. Anything else is no one's business."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato wasn't sure if he wanted to hurt Taichi immensely for making him look like a charity case, or hug him to unconsciousness for being a real ace about it and normalizing Yamato's ridiculous bullshit life. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Yeah, the CEO of the company that scouted us said/span the same thingspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;". As the leader of the band, he asked me to stay in his office while Dasha, Ren and Zero headed out. He told me that if we worked really hard, prayed every evening before we went to bed, and crossed our fingers em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"really/em tight, we could hit it big in a good few years. That we bring something new and innovative to old-school indie punk – and that most people didn't fancy new and innovative as much as they fancied their bloody four chords. He said he'd be happy to work with us once we got bigger and splurged all the other shit people are running their mouths with when they're trying to butter you up." Yamato's mouth slouched into. "That is, unless I gave him a good enough reason to keep me around em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"right now./em And that's easy. All you have to do with people like that is not show them how much you hate doing it and try not to bite their dicks off." He leaned back, propped himself on his palms and stretched his legs forward into the circle./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""So I did it." /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato produced the second joint he rolled before the game and a Zippo. Tucking it between his lips, he brought the tip into the low, blue fire and drawled his intake of poison, giving in to the resurfacing tendrils of em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"influence /emwhich began stroking his Hippocampus again. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Somewhere around the less fuzzy zones of his mind, Yamato took a mental note to buy new oil for the lighter. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He let the smoke sear through his throat until it polluted his lungs. He reined it and let the pain ripen into a burning sensation before breathing out and watching the spicy exhaust swirl into the air in appliques. It exited through the window, into the warm night./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #4bacc6; mso-themecolor: accent5; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Nestling the stick between his index and middle fingers, Yamato continued. "We aren't getting younger. Real opportunities are more rare than clean socks in Taichi's locker." Yamato smiled and his features somewhat softened when the portraits of his band-mates surfaced to the forefront of his mind. "Probably…" another huff and release, "it was probably my last chance to do something for them. To get them out of their respective shitholes."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #4bacc6; mso-themecolor: accent5; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"That wasn't a hyperbole. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"On a particularly odd rehearsal, in the middle of the night, booming with all sorts of stupefying chemicals, Dasha virtually begged him to not let her die like her third degree cousin did – drunk and schizophrenic on the plains of Siberia. Yamato didn't bother reminding her it will require an almost twelve hour flight before she'd get anywhere near the place./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The electric needle pricks started settling in. A pure, beccy-free roll of green does that. Yamato's skin cells were ants that dug holes through his dermis. They crawled upside-down inside of him, climbed to the base of his head and turned into a sparkling fairy-land. Colours were beautiful. He giggled a bit, but not quite, and killed it – the giggle./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""They shouldn't be punished over shaking up Mozart's supreme rule. No fuckin way I got out there, looked them in the eye, and told them there was no contract just because I couldn't, literally, suck it up and swallow the pill. Not when the company was already smearing our faces with the bloody thing. So, yeah, maybe we signed the papers with spunk, but at least it didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth – no pun intended." Yamato sucked from the bone one last time before passing it, along with the crumbling ceramic mug, over to Ken who was signalling him with eager fingers./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi believed him. Yamato, probably, would die for his friends. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Not that I wouldn't.' /span/emspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi inhaled, and subdued the memory. Let dead things lie./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It was complicated, though. Yamato's fear of being neglected again and to be alone, useful to none hadn't fully abated. A residue of his mum's leaving – that if even she didn't want him… well, that's the notion anyway. Having been the one who made the choice to go with his father didn't help make anything better either. That's what that earlier divorce and love business really boiled down to./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"His mother did, in fact, still love him, and he loved her back as much as he could. It just wasn't always enough. Just because Yamato rationally understood the situation, didn't mean he could stop his feelings from existing. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"One testimony to how deep this problem ran for him was how he went ballistic over anything to do with Takeru when they were still in the Digital World. Not just in the sense of Yamato wanting go to stupid lengths to protect the kid-brother whom he was split from – and affirm his place in the world by proxy. There was a tinge of jealousy there. After all, Yamato was the elder brother who protected, worried and gave just about everything he had for his younger one… Only to receive a slap in the face for it when Takeru rejected him the moment he didn't need him. It would be natural for Yamato to yearn for the sheltered life and love Takeru received so easily, feel guilty for it, and try to compensate. When Taichi raised this hypothesis in front of Yamato – there was no denial. Yamato didn't say anything, actually. That alone said a style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"After almost losing Gabumon three years ago, em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"'and… me? Yeah…I know…' /emSomething flipped in Yamato. Hard. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It fostered a need in him to reflect his life on his body. The marks – a proof, on the outside of him, that em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"this/em was real. That the adventure which brought him his first friends was real; that what he had was real. That Taichi is real. That em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"he /emis real. That he didn't just hallucinate it all along only to wake up, alone, somewhere, again. But he still needed it to be personal and private enough to be something that is his. Scars were something which could be born from inside of Yamato and he could own them. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi never asked about himself though, or anything related to that day. Not about Omegamon, not about Jesmon… not about the fall. How could he make Yamato answer something like that? But it's not like he had to either. It wasn't only Gabumon Yamato almost lost./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Sometimes, Yamato watches him. Like when they're hanging out. Taichi knows Yamato is actually watching em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"over/em him. Or they'd argue and Yamato would suddenly stop, go quiet, go to his room, come back, and stare at Taichi like it was the first time he ever saw him. He didn't want an argument to be their last memory together if Taichi died, right? That's what Yamato was thinking? It was those and many other little things that told Taichi what Yamato wouldn't. Three years is not long enough to start forgetting, but twenty or whatever years won't make a single sodding difference either. There is just too much that time cannot erase. Not for Yamato./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Whatever the case was, the Yamato who grew up and matured since those experiences, the one whose knee was jabbing into Taichi's thigh right now, will do pretty much everything conceivable and some things that aren't, if it keeps friends in his life. So long as those friends won't become something ephemeral. Not now. Not after he found the courage in him to carve a path through mountains of iron for the colossal privilege of having someone walk it by his side; and, so much more than that – so he could walk it by theirs. He had to learn what friendship meant. He earned in blood what everyone else around him got to have for free. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Jyou, on the other hand, was not placated as the rest were by Yamato's defence of his occupational decisions. "Yamato, as the resident doctor, I have to ask if you've gone any further than committing fellatio on those strangers."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The effigy of 'what the fuck is wrong with you – talk like a human being' stamped Yamato's face. "Did you also ask your girlfriend if you can commit the loving act of procreation before getting your leg over with her to reach post-coital bliss? Are you performing genital stimulation via phallengetic motions before inserting yourself into the diurnal coma for an octad of hours?" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"If the subject matter embarrassed Jyou, he was pretty decent at not showing it. "Nah, I usually tell her to bring me the whip and put on the ball gag while I get into my vinyl tights. Seriously though…" Despite the jokes, sternness radiated from him and promised he won't relent till Yamato told him what he wanted to hear./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Unfazed, but on the verge of emotional fatigue, Yamato brushed a strand of hair from his face. "Don't worry, Doc. I'm a serious, chipper, em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"whore/em-coholic. Read all the puberty manuals at fourteen. Durex merchandise is practically spilling out of my mattress." /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #4bacc6; mso-themecolor: accent5; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He purposefully left the question unanswered and with room for speculations. Yamato talked out of his arse – alright, em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"almost /emout of his arse – but let them grind their wheels. He just about had it with this Spanish Inquisition./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Instead, he put the nearest bottle of Scotch whisky in Jyou's hand and waited for the predictable to happen./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Jyou looked at him, looked at the bottle, looked back at him, and took a swig, mumbling around the glass, "godammit, Yamato…"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Where alcohol was concerned, Yamato had a bad influence on Jyou. The man couldn't hold down his arsenic to save his own balls. Yamato knew that. Jyou knew that. To the day, this knowledge em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"still/em hadn't prevented style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi diffused the tension Yamato's answer left behind with one of his wild snorts. "You are such a whore!"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""At least I get something out of it. You'll jump every warm-blooded vagina, you effervescent slut. Please, remind me – what's the name of that girl you were copping off with today?"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"itched/em to remind Taichi who it was between the two of them tossed his dick into whatever came his style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Yes, I'm a slut," Taichi accepted the challenge, wearing an impish grin Yamato would love to hate. "Can't help it. When a pretty girl propositions me, I immediately wanna know how she's in bed. I'm a healthy, sexual, curious boy. What's wrong with that?" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Slut' was a top-ten favourite when they got down to name-calling, but no one here considered healthy promiscuity to be a negative thing, so it wasn't really an insult./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""What's her name, Taichi?" Yamato pushed./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Got me there – something long and biblical so I didn't bother memorising." /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi planted his elbow on his knee and prepped his chin on his fist, leering at Yamato from below his vantage point. "So, Ishida, spit or…"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Swallow." /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"God/span/emspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;", booze made him talk. Yamato gave Taichi a look, ten times over the smug shit he can be, while secretly hoping to die a bit./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Nice…" Taichi pretended to contemplate how to integrate this new data into his life. "So, say I got you that amplifier you've been drooling over – will you suck my dick?" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The muscles in Yamato's forearm contracted with little spasmic pulses and he went rigid while glaring at Taichi as though he just ate a child. Maybe Taichi was taking the piss out of him and all, but he just asked Yamato for a blow-job. How the hell did that happen? /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Taichi…" Yamato heaved a sigh, making it sound like anywhere but here was the best place to be at. "Don't make things so bloody awkward. You are my best friend…" He diverted his gaze sideways./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Shit. If Taichi could just keep his mouth shut or take back his lame joke, he'd be a happy man. "Hey…" He frantically searched for something to fill in the ellipses./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""I'll do it for free, blud!" Yamato snapped back at him, pretending to drop an act he was pulling, and was thankful for whatever remains he had of his quick thinking. Of course, Taichi didn't have to know Yamato was 100% serious and would suck Taichi bare on his knees till his jaw fell off. Or that he was thoroughly relishing that tremor of Taichi's well-sculpted muscles when he laughed, tucking every bit of Taichi's hilariously red face into memory. Yamato'd use it to keep himself company during his em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"long /emlectures on the 'Philosophy and Thinkers of Euclidean Geometry.'/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Please don't…" Takeru pleaded. There was only so much cock-munching exploits he could listen to from his own brother before it hurt his psyche./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato and Taichi sniggered and fist bumped each other./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""So wait, when you sleep with groupies…" Sora started. She let the ashes from the spliff fall into the brown, muddy fluid, right from between the healthily copper fingers she earned during the football match./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""I don't sleep with groupies. I don't sleep with fans, period." Yamato stopped her before the question had a chance to go anywhere. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The red-head nodded apologetically, offering one of her affectionate smiles as compensation./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Daisuke, on the other hand, looked heart-broken. "But… dude… you… you are a hot rock star! All those hot mouths and hot, long legs and hotter… How-"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""What am I – pathetic? I need to go with anyone who offers? Why? For the dubious pleasure of boasting about it? Fig. First of all – I don't really have the need to. Despite what the telly tells you, not all men, or even all musicians, are sex-crazed maniacs." span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanYamato was gonna put an end to all the misconceptions his friends had about his current career before he snapped someone's neck. "Second – I have no idea where those people were and what kind of diseases they carry. We put on happy faces, we do the masturbation-level solos, we toss picks or throw the drum sticks around, but that's as far as I go." /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Ouch!" Hikari was amazed by the harsh antics of the person she often considered to have a greater capacity for the human tragedy than most people. Then again, capacity and sympathy were not synonymous. "And here I thought you grew up to be a decent man."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"If Yamato'd had been an animated character, his eyebrow would have soared. A decent man can get to some decent places. But bad boys get to be spanked, tied to a bedpost, spread-eagled, and fucked to oblivion. He would have liked being a bad-boy – just to be punished. He would have liked a treatment like that. Especially from her brother. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"For a tiny maniacal moment, he considered saying as much. Let it all out in a single, epic outing which would take down the house. But he wouldn't, now, would he?span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""That's cold," Hikari said in her compassionate way. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato shrugged. "Don't give me that. I respect my fans. They put food on my table, pay my academic tuition, and give Ren, Dasha, and Zero blow-jobs just because we're the Knife of Day. I hate – em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"hate/em – those old, so-called rock-'n'-rolling farts who trash their audience. That's why I feel I am doing mine a favour. I prefer not screwing people while imagining I'm with someone else – which is exactly what I would have done if I'd slept with them. It's cruel and only lonely people or couples in stale marriages do that. And even if a bunch of teeny-boppers chuck their knickers at me, doesn't mean they know two shits about the world. They don't know what it's like to wake up in a cheap motel room naked and used. Or in the back room of some club. And I don't want them to know. Even if some of them do, I don't want to be responsible for that, not even retroactively. It won't be fair to them or me."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span"Yamato?"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato gave a small nod which indicated she had his attention and may proceed./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""You are adorkable." She giggled a bit before her lips settled into a form Yamato was way more likely to find on Taichi. But while on Taichi this face had potential to be reassuring, on Hikari it downright alluded to nasty Silent Hill scenes./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The dissonance was em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"way/em too present. With the combined forces of Takeru's companionship, Taichi's brothering skills, and that bloody innocent face of hers, she could out-troll them all! That was the face of Satan! Yamato was speechless for a good few seconds before blurting, "shut up, you!" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Oh, and the shade of pink that almost certainly got stuck on his face was plucked straight from eleven-year-old-Mimi's wildest style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He attempted to discreetly disentangle himself from the situation, but Taichi's hand landed on his shoulder. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yup – doom./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Smooth, Knife of Ramen. Very smooth."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"While Taichi dodged the punch aimed at him, something clenched in that area under his kidneys which made him feel like his poop's about to come out. The combination between the whiskies he downed, along with all the touchy-feely people were letting out, made his heart thump so fast he had an oxygen-induced high. It had him dizzy and kinda floaty. Like someone stuffed his head with cotton floss and clouds. In parallel, he had contractions of pain in his stomach – like it was gonna get crushed./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Maybe he was a bit tipsy, but he'd swear on his grave a longing expression cast a shadow over Yamato's countenance. Even if it was for a millisecond, it tugged at Taichi – hard. He was becoming agitated about that nameless person on Yamato's mind – or heart? – who wouldn't leave him. Did they make Yamato go past 'in love' to actually em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"loving/em them? Did they make him care? Was it anything close to what Yamato had with Taichi? Fucking hell. Something was unresolved. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi wanted to do something for him, to help, but had no idea what or how. Yamato made it clear any nose shoved into this business would be broken on sight. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The reactions of his mates from the football team were still on Taichi's mind; how they drooled all over Yamato./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"'Who in their right mind would refuse Yama anyway?'/span/em/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"If Taichi ever met that dude or the dudette, he would tear them a new one./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Statistically speaking, you should be getting laid much more often. At least compared to what you say you do." Koushiro released the smoke, blowing three, almost perfect rings of grey clouds one into the other like only Koushiro could, watching them disperse and dissolve. He relinquished the spliff to Mimi who took a single puff before passing it on to Daisuke. By this point, it became their slutty little peace pipe and Yamato's flat was Amsterdam./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Are we seriously still on the topic of my sex life?! Bugger off, will you?! Statistics can mount it and, if you honestly wanna know, I don't want anyone touching me at all!"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Yamato was so done with this shit. "Look – yes, somewhere between high-school and now stuff happened. I probably did more nasty things with more people than either my mum or dad would ever want to know about. But, em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"clearly/em, not half as much as you think I did." /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Smug beyond belief, Takeru threw Taichi a look. "Taichi, do your bromantic-with-a-questionable-B duty and make my brother calm his tits down."span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi threw an arm around Yamato's shoulders and dipped his head till his nose was almost poking Yamato's chin. "People are just curious 'cause they're not used to you volunteering information about this. But we're not laughing at you, we're laughing with you."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""I know…" Yamato humphed and crossed his arms over his chest./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Taichi scratched whatever Yamato piece his fingers touched with small, round motions. "Want me to bring you a pillow to scream into?" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""No…"/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Ken chuckled. "You know, Yamato, your sexual preferences require a master's degree in psychology to understand. And the fact you are both a whore and a complete and utter prude at the same time is something better left for /spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Schrödinger's/span span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"equation to nitpick at and for us to never discuss again." /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Brilliant," Yamato agreed./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""I second that," Taichi joined, wholeheartedly. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Uncharacteristically miffed, the composed Iori – the one with the cleanest mouth of them all – piped in. "While this is all very interesting, how about you keep it for your pillow talks? Thank you!"/span/p 


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Where is my mind?

The conclusions from the first round of the game were:

The matter of who Yamato was doing, how he was doing them, and anything remotely associated with the subject, was off the list of viable conversation topics for the near six months or so.

Taichi's lungs were pure, white, and virginal. He avoided smoke-ables like the plague. He faced the risk of things coming up in his coaches' surprise blood tests, and regular cigarettes will reduce his stamina and lung capacity.

Sora was weirdly ignorant regarding the identity of her grandparents.

Koushiro wasn't gonna turn into a ninja on them any time soon since he hadn't learned any martial arts.

Jyou had never been himself hospitalized. Oh, the irony!

Takeru was still a regular virgin and it surprised no one.

Finally, there was also the fact that Hikari, to the day, is still clueless about what her dad does for a living. She only knows that he returns home utterly caned, and that it irks her mum to no end.

"…and I don't get it. I mean, I know he's a salaryman, and it's for business, so he has to go with his boss and blah-blah-blah, but he's not young, you get me? Getting loose is fine, but moderation is a thing, right? What kind of a kick does he get from being _so_ plastered and arseholed every night he face-plummets through the front door first thing when he gets home?"

"You know what they say: falling on your face is still moving forward," Koushiro attempted to comfort her under the daze of half a Lager can.

Now the 'punishments' were due for all those who had five fingers folded.

"Right, what can we do to shake up our quiet, responsible Iori?" Miyako said, a notch more sly than usual.

After Yamato vehemently refused to send Iori to his neighbours in a school-girl outfit, to try and convert the couple from downstairs to the cult of Pazuzu, Takeru came up with an elegant solution.

"Have him get his ear pierced or something."

A low murmur escalated into a crescendo of inclusive agreement.

Iori hummed, reluctant, but seemed to have accepted his hole-inducing fate. "What types are there?"

"Yamato?" Takeru, like-minded with Iori, was ready for that issue.

"Please don't make me do something too conspicuous. I don't think my grandfather will appreciate it," Iori added.

Ever the happy one to consult the wayward minds of the inexperienced about body-modification, Yamato moved the blonde strands from his ears.

"All right." Yamato pointed to the appropriate metals assimilated into his ear-shells, explaining them as he went along: "These are Tragus, Snug, Daith, and Rook – they can hurt if you have thick flesh." He moved his finger up and around the outer flesh. "Helix – easy to hide. This here," he tapped on a serpentine piece which spiralled from the top of his lobule up to his anatomical helix, piercing his ear with every coil, "is an Ear Weaving Piercing. It's not restricted to the ears, though. You can do it on every body part." Yamato finished with the tutorial and let his hand drop. "Any piercing you do around the ear area can usually be hidden behind your hair and all piercers will do them for you."

Iori wasn't too keen on any of the options Yamato laid out. "Is there anything which is not around the facial area?"

A bit more hesitant, Yamato mumbled a soft, "Sure," and pulled his shirt from the restrictions of his jeans, exposing his hips and a bejewelled navel.

Bam! Before Yamato even got to untuck his shirt all the way, the warm flesh of fingers tenderly brushed against the sensitive skin of his belly. Those moved in slow, entranced motions before starting to tinker and tug energetically at the petit titanium rod. They seemed extra fond of the small orb which jutted from his body and kept the metal in place, unable to stop touching it very lovingly.

Shivers ran up Yamato's spinal cord.

Taichi was like a petulant child, who couldn't help himself from touching everything even remotely resembling a toy he fancied.

"When I'll get a girlfriend, I totally want her to have one of those."

Yamato didn't want Taichi to stop but he didn't want to tell him that. He swatted the intrusive hand away, finding a convenient method to vent the arousal and heat which spiked around his pelvis and branched in all directions.

' _Turning you on, am I?_ _So help me – I wanna suck you off till I pass out from lack of oxygen and die, overjoyed, with your semen in my oesophagus.'_

"Party pooper."

Yamato shrugged off the comment and unbuttoned the top of his shirt, to the encouraging whistles and catcalls.

"Take it off!" Miyako shouted to his left.

Yamato rolled his eyes, too aware of his flush, but continued anyway.

"Down girl, down!" Daisuke said, though he was also staring and wasn't hating on what he was seeing. _'Blondie's hot. Everybody knows that.'_

"Nipple."

Yamato spun around from the waist up, displacing bright yellow hairs to expose his nape. An elongated metal bar, which extended over the width of his neck, was revealed and looked like it was welded into his skin. "That's a surface. You can have those wherever you fancy." He turned back. "And-" Yamato stuck out his tongue.

Iori took a moment to comprehend it. "I think that's a bit too modern for me. The nipple one seems the most reasonable option from your catalogue."

"I read somewhere that mid-line tongue piercings were practiced by French prostitutes in the 17th century," Yamato answered. "Said to make gobbling knobs much better on the receiving side. I think it's as old as the Aztecs, actually." He smiled. "But nipple's a good choice. Lots of nerve endings there, though, so it _will_ hurt."

There was also his new ring, snuggled under the sensitive folds of his ball-sack. Pissed out of his skull though he was – smashed, really – he retained the mental acumen to reject it as a viable option for Iori. Yamato didn't feel like talking about it in general. Ideally, he'd tell Taichi first, but he probably wouldn't do that either.

"I have a few spare rings. I can go bring a needle if you want it," Yamato suggested. He'd do whatever distracted him from his previous thought.

"As the responsible adult in the room, I insist that if Iori is going to mutilate himself, it'd be done by a professional," Jyou cut in, face straight as a ruler.

So Yamato gave Iori Victor's card. "Tell him you're my friend."

"Will he give me a discount?"

"No, but he may not smoke in your face."

From Taichi's vantage point, he had a perfect view of the silver pole penetrating the coral bud on Yamato's chest. The asymmetry it attributed to it was brilliant to look at, and Taichi admired the way it gave an edge to Yamato's otherwise skinny physique.

' _Fitting.'_

He also noticed the rest of Yamato's shirt was strategically covering the scarred portion of his chest, and that the topic of his needle-full hobby made Yamato act a bit flirtier. How aware was Yamato of that fact? It was kinda cute, though. Not a side Yamato had much of. Letting it out was healthy for him.

Another punishment was for Sora to lick cream cheese out of Jyou's belly button – "that's probably the closest he's got in a while to a girl who wasn't sick, bleeding, or dead," Daisuke chipped, to which Sora deadpanned, "who said anything about not bleeding?"

Yamato and Mimi were charged with swapping underwear with one another. The current, used underwear. No cheating.

"That is rather unsanitary," Koushiro offered, not too enthusiastic about the prospect.

"Hogwash! It's a fresh pair and I changed before coming over," Mimi answered.

Yamato nicked the vinegar crisps Taichi was about to crunch on from Taichi's salty fingers, scrambled to his feet, and entered the shower room.

"Proof or it didn't happen!" Miyako yelled the moment Yamato and Mimi re-emerged, five minutes after entering – much to the cheering of their friends.

Mimi pulled up her skirt to reveal a pair of black, tight boxer trunks which she accompanied with a small pirouette.

Yamato lifted a leg to show a foot clad in transparent, black stockings and tried diving to his seat.

"No!" Daisuke shouted. "Show us the goods!"

"No," Yamato hissed as Taichi deliberately spread his leg all over Yamato's space, smug little shit that he was.

"But _big brother_ ," Takeru offered in an over the top, whiny voice, "what about an encore for your adoring fans? We didn't yet bask in the pleasures of your booty."

Yamato swivelled in his place, ready to give Takeru a what for.

The top of his pale butt-cheeks landed right in Taichi's face. _'Huh.'_ And Taichi spotted the black, satin string passing right in their midst, covering the bare minimum to pass as lingerie.

"AAH!" Yamato almost hit his head on the wall, after Taichi pulled said satin string right up Yamato's butt and announced, "Found it!" over him.

"Let me see!" Daisuke was about to crawl over, but Taichi stretched over his other leg and it blocked Daisuke's path. Yamato's three-metre-jump caused a mini-striptease to happen to his jeans and it accompanied a little jiggle of his non-existent bum-fats.

"Nuh-uh," Taichi wiggled his finger in Daisuke's face with the hand which wasn't clutching then-Mimi's-now-Yamato's thong. "This is a private show. Adults only."

Yamato smacked Taichi's hand off his ass with Daisuke whistling in the background, kicked Taichi's leg away, and threw himself back down to his place beside Taichi.

The moment his arse parked, legs crossed under his weight, Taichi gave him a small nod, indicating towards the spot Mimi had reclaimed.

Yamato followed his gaze, not entirely sure what he was looking for, but found it nonetheless: the gentle, shy strokes Koushiro was passing against Mimi's hand with his pinky – the small motions of uncertain flirting.

Yamato still couldn't believe this brilliant programmer, who can bend the world to his will with a portable screen and a keyboard, has done diddly-squat to make his feelings for the sweetest, most fun girl in the world, clear. Not that _Yamato_ was one to talk.

Blue met brown eyes.

' _Bloody hell, are we playing matchmakers now?'_ A near-invisible rise in Yamato's eyebrows stretched his crumpled-from-thinking physiognomy, and laugh-lines edged into his skin-folds.

Taichi's spreading lips were almost audible – and contagious.

Yamato's formed a mirror image; the left side of his mouth twitched imperceptibly higher into his cheek.

' _Go get them, Ishida,'_ Taichi answered with a look.

Yamato tried to bite off the hint of a smile he had on him before anyone asked about it _._ Communication between him and Taichi was fast and efficient, composed of effective synergy.

Yamato turned right. "Hikari, can you help me with something?"

"Sure."

Yamato took Hikari's wrist in the palm of his left hand. With the fingertips of his right, he drew feather-light circles and paintings of vines along the sensitive skin of her inner arm. Hikari squealed and let out periodical giggles every time he touched a particularly ticklish area, or in a particularly pleasant way.

"Sorry." He let her go. "I just wanted to confirm somethi-"

"What was that about?" Mimi jumped, insinuating she opted for the same treatment.

' _Score!'_ was written all over Taichi's face as he, the proud accessory to the crime, and his partner exchanged brief glances of mutual content.

Yamato crawled over to their targets and crouched, sitting on his haunches in front of Mimi. He restarted his service, brushing and tugging on the delicate strings of her skin.

He registered the indignant frown Koushiro shot him, but didn't show he acknowledged it. If everything will go as intended, the red-head will owe Yamato pretty much all the way to the grave.

She mewled with the pitch of a violin and raised fingers to block her mouth, wholly embarrassed and partially excited.

"You are going to make some girl _really_ happy one day," she said, unable to contain the smidgen of awkward arousal, and, after a moment's thought, added, "or boy."

Yamato smiled at her for a moment and went back to concentrating on what he was doing. It was more embarrassing than he thought it'd be. He hadn't touched a girl like this in a very long time. "It's one of the side-benefits of being a bassist. That and numbness. Zero almost electrocuted me once – the bell-end put a raw cable in my fingers, but I didn't feel a bloody thing. My nerves are factually, medically non-existent. These fingers no longer dread the penalties of kitchen appliances _and_ there is nothing I can't play _._ "

He let his act go on for a little while longer before the muscles on his calves protested in pain.

"Sorry. Everything from my waist down is getting cramped." Yamato straightened up, and, for a second, pretended to mull over an idea in his mind in response to Mimi's much anticipated pout.

"Take over?" Yamato gave Koushiro an encouraging pat on the shoulder and the sort of expression which urged him to catch on the goings-on and seize the moment. Yamato saw the gears in the genius head spinning and the confusion softening into gratitude.

He aimed for his seat but his friends, who wanted a personal demonstration of his skill, were not going to let him have it.

And they were young enough to get away with ridiculous amounts of ridiculous shit, but old enough to try and drink beer through their noses as Ken and Daisuke were attempting to demonstrate.

That meant eight people on the overall count, precluding Yamato himself, Koushiro, who busied himself with the delicate task of pleasing Mimi, and the girl who was being pleased.

When he finally, _finally_ got back to his place, he stretched his poor, strained legs – which would have started shouting war-cries if they had had proper mouths to do that with.

Hop! Taichi's arm was in his lap. Yamato followed the trail of the offending limb to confront its owner about the rude infringement into his personal space.

The mop-for-hair simply replied, "What? I want to know what the fuss's about."

' _Well, butter my buttocks and never call me anything – a willing victim'._

Cheri Bomb, resting on her stand down in his room, was Yamato's first association. He'd play Taichi like he played her; make lovely sounds come out.

He started with two, callous finger-pads against Taichi's palm, loving the contrasts of their skins. The index and middle finger chased one another in scant, teasing touch, drawing slow and tentative patterns along the warm length of Taichi's exposed arm and throbbing veins.

Occasionally, they returned to the beginning and stroked each of Taichi's sun-soaked knuckles with equal dedication. Then they flew upwards again to explore the topography of the welcoming flesh.

Taichi had such a smooth skin, he could make baby-oil commercials. A research should be conducted on the ratio between the sweat Taichi exudes as a natural moisturiser to the hours he spends on the field.

The Chosen Children circle distorted and reformed into smaller bands of conversation which talked over each other. Sora and Iori were engaged in a debate about formal Kendo attire while Daisuke, Jyou, Mimi, and Koushiro – who was still mimicking Yamato's motions on Mimi – were talking about the first's academic future. Though Daisuke was blabbing on about something else entirely.

Ken's eyes darted to Yamato and locked on the ministrations Yamato was carrying out on Taichi. When their eyes met for a second there, Ken offered a knowing smile before joining the others.

Yamato himself was content with listening to the pleasant buzz of people in his house and catching snippets of their talks, while being captivated by the tango he performed with his hand and Taichi's arm.

He could so easily imagine him and Taichi in bed together. It was scary how easy it was. He'd have Taichi between his legs and each of said legs would be hooked over broad, tan shoulders. His tender behind would be pillowed by Taichi's thighs while he'd be telling Taichi, as seductively as he'll ever get, how lucky he, Yamato, is. That's what he was trying to convey with his hands right now; with them thoroughly delving into the expense of Taichi's warm flanks.

Taichi noticed the sweet touch of Yamato's long and calming fingers lingered on him much more than on anybody else. Shifty little spiders those things were; aristocratic, like those of pianists, but also coarse enough. They were attractive. Not that Taichi cared at all how long Yamato took. It felt amazing.

Their languidly paced massage was getting more daring, as they braved underneath the short sleeve of his jersey and claimed the uncharted regions of his triceps, satiating their curiosity with an almost innocent caress. Almost.

Taichi wasn't going to complain. Yamato should do this for a living. How the hell they went through their entire friendship without Yamato doing this to him?

He melted into the comfortable touch and hummed, pleasured. Taichi didn't mind those small, intimate physical expressions between himself and Yamato. They came very naturally. How wouldn't they?

There was also something about it being Yamato touching him like this. Yamato was _not_ a gentle person and he didn't touch people. When Yamato was being so gentle with Taichi, there was a whole lot of _'HOLY SHIT!'_ going on inside Taichi's everywhere.

The first thing Yamato noticed during his wanton invasion was the impressive, firm swell of Taichi's upper arm.

' _Well… that's new,'_ Yamato thought before, _'bad Yamato! Bad, bad, bad Yamato!'_ He put forth active effort to stop thinking – specifically about what those strong arms could do to him. Better before the current of heat circulating in his chest would plummet all the way down into his trousers, and Taichi would realise how hard Yamato is.

Away from the view of others, Yamato drew past the moist area of Taichi's armpit, the one smelling of cheap men's deodorant and Taichi's particular sunshine scent. Him groping Taichi's muscles? An accident. Keyword 'accident'. An accident and no one can prove it wasn't.

Sensing Taichi bristle a bit as he tugged at the hairs there, Yamato scaled almost all the way up to Taichi's shoulder before smoothing his way back to the shapely curve he was admiring.

"Oi, Taichi, great job on those biceps."

It was neutral, stating-simple-facts the way Yamato said it. He wouldn't go for more.

The self-satisfaction Taichi got from having his exercises acknowledged was smeared all over his face and he grinned so wide Yamato could see his incisors. "Thanks!"

That was the final draw. Hikari had an outburst of periodical giggles which did their best not to explode into a fit. "Yamato, will you please stop shamelessly flirting with my brother?!"

Yamato wasn't even slightly fazed by being caught in action. Instead, he was the spitting image of someone who shagged his boss' hot wife right on the bloke's posh desk – complete with a tell-tale smugness pasted to his face.

Since the alcohol told him it'd be a good idea, he stopped fiddling with Taichi's arm and instead wrapped his own around Taichi's shoulders. That, while bringing his body into Taichi's lap and squashing it under his arse. Oh, and Yamato loved that lap. It accommodated the shape of his tush perfectly. Taichi may not have known it, but Yamato was pretty certain it was a bespoke lap made for him.

With his other hand, Yamato ran his fingers along the rugged, mocha cheeks and jawline, rubbing the unshaved stubs, and looking for the cute, little dark freckles beneath them. "I see you were lazy here today," Yamato faked a purr down Taichi's ear – almost, almost nuzzling the crook of his warm neck –

but it was obvious everyone was supposed to hear him. Taichi's normally chapped lips were less so than usual, probably due to the humidity.

Armed with the best wistful eyes under his long fringe, Yamato glanced over at Hikari before replying to her rhetorical question. "But why? Since you are doing my brother, shouldn't I do yours?" he kept on going matter-of-factly, relishing the way in which both of his and Taichi's siblings looked like they took a bite off the same double-decker spunk sandwich. He considered it a fair retribution for 'adorkable' earlier. "For symmetry, you get me? Besides, you don't get to where I do with shame."

It was their old shenanigans again, and Taichi was used to this game between them; he and Yamato played it many times. They've been flirting with each other to take the piss out of their friends ever since Angemon and Angewomen shot those 'arrows of love' through them. Sweet, innocent little Hikari, who was only eight at the time – or were those Koushiro's parents?! – mentioned they were like cupids.

That cute metaphor was the doom which sealed their fate from that point on. They knew what was coming: slews of gay jabs, bender jokes and running gags about who was topping, sprinkled lavishly with detailed, totally bogus stories which would get rowdier with every incarnation.

So, they did the one logical thing they could come up with and beat everyone to the punch.

The habit ended up sticking through the years – every now and then becoming bloody ridiculous. Really dancing on the lines and edging on the rims of what was admissible within the boundaries of normative, man-to-man interactions. Mimi and Takeru had instructed them several times to 'fuck the sexual tension out of their relationship'. Hikari said they had a 'romantic friendship' once – whatever that means. Not that he and Yamato started off with what could be considered 'normative' anything. Nine years later, they have no social barriers around each other and 'appropriate' isn't part of their dictionary. They wanked together rather a lot. They'd probably bring a potential shag home and screw them while the other was on the other side of the bed. Yamato cleaned Taichi's vomit once, after an after-party Taichi'd been at where his mates got him to drink beer out of a funnel. Not one of them gave a mad baboon's half a shit – not to mention a whole fuck – about what outsiders thought. When they were together, they ruled their own world. So when the mood took them, they let it have them.

It was a convenient enough arrangement. Yamato got to fondle Taichi without it looking suspicious; Taichi got to let out all his touchy-feely fixations. Both got to be little shits. Win-win.

Obviously, Taichi was the one who started it. Later, he often used alcohol as his excuse to get out of his skull and come on to Yamato – because why not? It earned him plenty of slaps until Yamato loosened up a bit, got used to it and, eventually, proved his sense of humour was every bit as corrupt as Taichi's. At first he said it's cruel. Taichi asked why in his best ho-hum voice. Yamato tried slapping him – but not hurting him. The rest is history.

Taichi was willing to wager Yamato actually liked the touches a bit. To see him initiate, like today, was still so bloody rare, though, and Taichi knew that having so many of his friends here made Yamato happy, even if he won't admit it.

Oh, and he was piss drunk, yeah? Yamato was a guarded person, controlling whatever he let out. Things got pent-up in there sometimes. But the moment he got down with some brewsky, all those inhibitions moved in inverse proportions to his alcohol consumption. And 'Mato could drink _a lot._ Like a damn proud Russian, he did. So with Yamato, when it rained – it poured. Any more booze, and he'll start poll-dancing. Or worse – he'll become human. More than once, Taichi saved Yamato from drunk-Yamato – but that was sober-Taichi's duty. Drunk-Taichi often joined drunk-Yamato in raising havoc, while trying to out-drunk him.

Most of those times, though, Taichi wanted to wrap Yamato in blankets and hide him from the world. He didn't like how exposed Yamato became.

Taichi gave the once-over to the untamed spitfire of a man sitting in his lap, so much bolder than usual, making false passes at him and taking the piss. Yamato's pupils were blown all over his irises – amped up on the weed. His lips were tinted and swollen from alcohol, looking like he'd been thoroughly kissed. His hair was dishevelled. He may as well have emerged from the bedroom after a wild round of hard sex.

There was something about him – Taichi understood that.

' _What a piece of pheromone-exuding eye candy. Is this how he looks when he's on his knees, staring between the legs of some Suit and Tie? And that baritone – how does he use it? Mewling? Moaning?'_

Taichi shoved the thought so far back to the darkness of his mind, Wizardmon couldn't conjure it to his foreground ever again.

' _Fair,'_ Taichi took a swig from his Tuborg and wiped the foam from his chin with the back of his sleeve. ' _Can't blame Yuri and the boys. I'm not gay but I'm sure as fuck not blind. And Yamato is_ damn _good at making people want him – knowingly or not.'_

Yamato's knee was jabbing Taichi's rib and Taichi couldn't decide whether to go along with the joke or leave him dry as retribution for picking on his sister.

Eventually, he compromised and took the middle ground.

"You are so full of shit…" he said but leaned into the touch, placing his chin on Yamato's shoulder. Taichi's cheeks lifted into a fat grin that turned into him laughing in a low place down his throat.

' _There it is. That's my sexy laugh.'_ Yamato crooned, satisfied, while Taichi rubbed his brow against him, brushing Yamato's hair with his nose as if they were two, overfed, and contented cats.

"But… You know…" Taichi negated the previous statement, imitating Yamato's sweltering intonation with an evil face of his own.

"Jokes aside, do you know how much money I can make selling the paparazzi _affectionate_ pictures of you two? The scandalous front-man of the biggest local rock band with the victorious captain of the football team?" Hikari fished her phone from her pocket and set it on camera mode. "Come on! Pucker up!"

"Yes! Yes! God, just do it already! The muffled sexual tension between you two can be heard from a distance!" Takeru gesticulated hectically with hands over his head, thanking whatever.

Dropping the act, Taichi's face crumpled and he splayed his fingers over his chest for the added drama- queen routine. "My own sister, selling me out for the greed of fame and fortune. Et tu _,_ Hikari? _Et tu_?!"

Hikari tapped on her phone expectedly.

Seeing as his sister was almost eclipsing the room at the prospect with the shine of her ivories, Taichi nudged Yamato for mental support. Someone had to prove her how much of an absolute loony–bin material she was being.

Yamato, on the other hand – utterly non-committal – kept silent as though he was the most innocent lamb in the room. One who just happened upon this sibling feud.

It registered all wrong.

"Holy crap, are you actually thinking about it, Taichi?!" Hikari exclaimed, all giddy.

Takeru placed his arms on his cocked hips and utilized his best reprimanding tone. "Right, let's get this sorted out once and for all – Taichi, are you gay for aniki?"

That elicited a loud one out of the accused – "trust me, Tick, everyone, and I mean _everyone_ , is gay for your 'aniki' - it's not a choice. 'Cept for lesbians, I guess. They're straight for your brother. I'm not kidding – that arse," he pointed down the general direction of Yamato's rear end, "is single-handedly responsible for the divorce rate in the country. It does horrible, horrible, _horrible_ things to people's sexualities."

Another instance of Taichi waxing poetic about his nether regions, and Yamato would have off him. It was a weird combination of embarrassing and arousing he was not cropped up to deal with.

"Going to take a leak." 'Bout now was Yamato's cue to go and re-familiarise himself with his dear urinal, and unload from his kidneys everything he drank. Now, before anyone dared Taichi to do something Yamato will be the one regretting.

Slapping both of Taichi's hands away from him, Yamato rolled his eyes and stormed off.

' _For bloody Hilda's bloody manush's sake, our drunk, fearless goggle-head won't take a pass on a challenge even if it comes rushing down his way in a semi-trailer packed with the mysteries people find in their bellybuttons.'_

"That's not an answer," Takeru said with an annoying sing-song voice.

Taichi gulped down the last sip from the amber glass bottle and tossed it to the plastic bin they'd adopted as an improvised wastebasket. "Sorry to disappoint, 'Keru, but I'm not yet ready to realise I'm not a special snowflake. I don't even think I'm his type."

' _You couldn't be more wrong, you arsehole,'_ thought Yamato, whose house doors weren't moulded with a bunker-grade thickness in mind, and let him hear everything that's been going on outside. He shook off the last few drops from his urethra, and put Mimi's thong back in its arse-splitting place before buttoning his trousers. Rejection is pretty shit when you're in the loo. Right, yes, maybe Yamato wasn't delusional, and didn't expect a heart-throbbing confession which would lead him to ride Taichi's dick into the sunset – or any other sappy bollocks of that kind. But this wasn't the most fun way he could think of to have his wounds poked at. 

"Yamato, resolve a quandary for us: what is your type?" Ken asked when Yamato returned to the vivacious bunch, greeting his target with engagement he usually reserved for his prey – the one they were all too familiar with during the Kaiser chapter in his life. It was accompanied with his matching smirk. It screamed _danger_!

Nowadays, he mostly employed it against the extra difficult questions he conquered in the field of mathematics, but Yamato's instincts told him nothing good was coming his way. He wasn't sure if the pretty boy was flirting with him or storing blackmail information for future use.

Yamato mulled over the question, considering what details should be omitted. "Don't really have one. I'm either attracted to something or I'm not."

"Theoretically speaking?" Ken pushed.

At that exact moment, the ultimate cinnamon bun – AKA, the object of Yamato's misguided sexuality – yawned tremendously and stretched, arching his entire back for the motion. No one would convince Yamato Taichi wasn't worth watching. When Taichi raised his arms over his head, the movement pulled the hem of his shirt _just right_. Just enough for Yamato to catch a sliver of the brown stripe of skin which accommodated those lean, drool-icious abs so neatly. That flat, numnumnum-able belly.

Yamato shifted his weight and discreetly pulled the crotch of his jeans down.

"I guess I fancy athletic body types? For both sexes. No relation to furries, but WereGarurumon's physique is ideal; triangular shape with natural muscles – not the body building volume or what you see on gym-junkies who're married to their subscription. I don't want to date a brick shithouse."

' _And especially Taichi's. Definitely ripped, but not beef-cake-ish. '_

"No, that's your fuckboi of choice," Sora said, "but who do you wanna _be_ with?"

"I-" ' _Taichi.'_

"Seems to me like I'm just whatcha need, sexy." Daisuke winked Yamato's way, undeniably libidinous, and scratched his sideburn. And saved Yamato's arse.

The younger boy talked big but had more mouth on him than experience. As far as subtlety was concerned, the word wasn't part of his lexicon, and despite the bombastic ego – his real motives were laid out for all to see in broad daylight. It wasn't a negative thing; relationships which are based on power games will become vexing. It was better if Daisuke didn't learn to play to begin with.

Daisuke also admired Yamato as his mentor, but made it damn obvious he wouldn't push him out of bed.

It was endearing, really. Yamato liked the kid a ton, and he could do pretty much whatever he wanted with Daisuke. The powerful cringe Yamato was experiencing down to his internals loosened up some.

' _Am I sloshed enough? Yes, yes, I'm sloshed enough.'_

So Yamato went along with his carnivorous instincts, giving himself up for a provocative mood. Today was meant for them to use it to its fullest, get loose, and take for granted.

"Yeah?" He propped himself on his elbows and stretched one leg forward, resting suggestively against the younger boy's bare knee.

Daisuke blinked, taking himself a second to process the new contact, and followed it all the way down across legs which seemed to be going on to infinity and to the tantalizing person at their end.

He wasn't sure if he should be terrified or aroused, but he was able to distinguish every single second his face became one shade closer to his hair colour and one Celsius degree closer to the sun.

Yamato flexed his toes and drew small, tickling hoops along the radius of Daisuke's joint, before crawling under his khakis and up his inner thigh in long, petting motions.

"Yeah…" Daisuke drawled, having lost too much blood in one head in favour of the other to express any form of eloquence. A lump formed in his throat, but there was no way, in any plane of existence, he'd refuse the blonde bombshell if he came on to him now.

What Taichi said was true. Everybody wanted a piece of that ass.

Yamato rose on all six and slithered his way across to the sitting space occupied by the younger Chosen.

Once he reached his mark, he descended, almost all the way, to meet that quivering lip.

The room was so quiet one would think someone pressed an omnipotent 'mute' button, and Yamato _sensed_ the pairs of eyes settling on him – wondering will he, or won't he.

Daisuke's eyes became lidded and he slanted that tad bit forward, anticipating.

Yamato brushed passed his cheek and brought himself to his ear.

"No."

Daisuke snapped back to reality only to see Yamato towering over him. The remains of the spliff, stolen from Daisuke's loose grip, were now nestled between that bombshell's pale knuckles. Yamato flipped him off while taking a long, proper hit from it right in Daisuke's face.

Takeru turned his head away as though he'd witnessed a horrendous vision and whistled, "shit! I heard Daisuke's balls break all the way up here."

"Why not?!" Daisuke whined, his half-boner slinking.

Yamato didn't say anything else. He ruffled those maroon strands of spikey hair to let Daisuke know he still liked him, before returning to Taichi with the spliff as his victory prize.

Taichi elbowed him. "Cut him some slack. Why not give him a chance?"

Yamato almost swallowed the stick. "He's all Ken's. I won't do that to them. And I bet you'll be a bitch about it for a week."

"Will not!"

"Besides…" Yamato ignored the loud disapproval, and blew the last fumes of his forcibly induced cheer before stubbing the butt against the mug and tossing it into the murky liquid inside. "I think he wears your old goggles in bed. I don't wanna think about you when I'm screwing."

"That's not very nice," Taichi commented, though he was clearly amused.

"I'm not a nice person."

"Fuck you."

"Is that a threat or a promise?"


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Angelfuck

Jyou had sick skills at Poker.

He didn't let a single emotion take permanent residence on his face – none remained for any period longer than a millisecond. Only some Bureau agent trained in reading micro-expressions could get close to deciphering it.

When Koushiro confronted his friend about this uncanny ability, Jyou said, "I'm going to be a doctor, you know. And I'm an intern to boot. I see sick people, old people, injured people, amputees and corpses before lunch. Do you really think the ace of spades is gonna faze me?"

It was unanimously agreed he was making a convincing argument and that they'll play Mahjong next time. That conversation was diverted to the topic of things he could sneak out of the hospital for them.

A few more hands and a round of Jungle Speed followed. The latter left Takeru with a bleeding crescent on his wrist, courtesy of Mimi's nail, and Sora with a dislocated thumb which had to be put back in place by their newly elected Poker master.

At half two in the morning, people started shuffling out.

Before closing the door behind her, Mimi poked her head through the crack and winked at Yamato while pointing at her wrist. "Cheers 'bout that hand job!"

Past that point, he and Taichi were left by themselves to bring the flat back to a habitable state. This consisted of picking up the clutter of partially consumedglassbottlespertaining to varying alcoholic beverages, the warzone of beer cans, sunflower seed hulls, and food leftovers.

Yamato finished sweeping the upper floor while Taichi took out the garbage and did the dishes. Afterwards, both had turns in the shower, with Taichi going in first.

Sometime before four, they plummeted into the den in the above storey, sleepy and mellow in the head. The middle cushion dipped beneath Taichi as Yamato's weight joined his, leaving a whiff of perfumed lotion in his wake. Taichi emitted a hybrid between snort and a post-drinking giggle.

"Jesus, you even smell gay."

Yamato plopped his head into Taichi's lap, his morphine, leaving his feet to dangle over the armrest. Wicked remnants of weed pinched his cranium, and whisky still swam up and down his toes.

"I'll make a point of rubbing your jockstrap over my face next time you're over." On his lips as well – Yamato still had that prickling from the spicy butt. "And what does 'smell gay' even mean? I secrete exclusive sex pheromones or something that attract gym bunnies?"

Taichi brushed Yamato's fringe behind his ear and peeked down at him, more sober than Yamato wanted to hear him. "Yeah," he said. "But I like how you smell."

With a tired smile, Yamato closed his eyes and buried his head in Taichi's stomach. The acoustics were perfect for him to catch on to all the weird 'ding's and 'boing's internal organs and gasses made. It was oddly calming. "Then don't complain about it…"

"I wasn't…"

Yamato didn't say anything and neither did Taichi.

Approximately ten minutes later was when either one made sounds happen again. "I get Dai and Ken are butt-buddies and all," Taichi said out of nowhere. Really, out of nowhere. "But what makes you think they fancy other butt-related activities with each other?"

"You taking the piss? Are you seriously not seeing it?"

Taichi shrugged. The staple of a bitch's passive-aggressive bullshit, but he wanted Yamato to go on with it.

"They're one drunken sleepover from finding out they've been a couple half a decade. One day they'll wake up hungover in bed together and next thing happening, Sora's mum will be doing their flower arrangements while we'll be choosing catering services from a catalogue," Yamato said. "They bring the best out of one another. And you _know_ Daisuke can arrive at a battle of wits unarmed. He's gagging for someone like Ken who'll accept him. Think about it. Think about what it means: going home knowing there is someone waiting for you there who listens to you and believe what you say is worthwhile even when you don't." Taichi detected Yamato's childhood deprivations when he finished with, "I think it's nice…"

"I lodge here almost every day and I'm listening to your rubbish pushing the bar of my BS capacity right now. What else do you need in life, babe?" Taichi jerked Yamato with his knees. "I'm here. If not in the Digital World, we're probably gonna die together right here on this couch. From liver failure. You need me – I'm here. You better know that."

Yamato's pillow, Taichi, was being a tad goofy, and right now Yamato fancied that plenty. As long as the skies weren't raining fire and brimstone, Taichi being a tad goofy made Yamato at ease. It made everything go away.

Taichi didn't need to look at Yamato to see the predictably stretching smile which accompanied his reply.

"Sweet, merciful crap – if you were any more competitive, you'd urinate on me."

"And you'd love it!"

He was right. No matter how much he advertised his independence, Yamato loved having Taichi watch out for him. If it weren't for Taichi, an anonymous truck driver would have found Yamato dead a long time ago in some random, roadside trench, between here and Matsuo mine, wearing nothing but his favourite socks and a fez.

"Say, Ishida?"

Yamato stared at him, cuing Taichi to continue with his tired eyes.

"Does having that thing in your mouth really make blowjobs better?"

It's when they embark on these types of conversation, which are infected with the weirdness of the small hours, that Yamato knows they should either fold or go do something preposterously unhealthy.

They've had worse, though. Once, after one of his concerts, they stayed up till eight in the morning, high spirited, and lying in a pile of limbs which couldn't stop rattling from the aftershock of deranged laughter. There was no conversation. Fragmented words – most of which tried being "ass"– got out every 20 minutes or so. Then they fell asleep on each other, drool and all. That day was the stuff legends are made of.

The answer Taichi received now was a frustrated moan of strained patience, followed by, "how the fuck should I know, Taichi?! I can't suck myself off, now, can I?!"

"No, but-"

In a quick shift to a machinelike emotional output, Yamato mumbled, "no one ever complained if that's what you wanna know…" Then his vengeance hit a home run at full-force and he jabbed his pointing finger into the valley formed between Taichi's ribs. "And stop asking stupid bloody questions!"

Taichi squealed, poked him back and they spent a few good instances struggling to grab stray hands aimed at each other. Each was trying to disarm the other of his digital ammunition before Taichi gave in. "Alright, alright! Sorry! Didn't figure you'd be so bloody sensitive about it, Mr _'Condoms Spilling From My Mattress',_ " Taichi used a stupid monkey voice for the title, "not that I believe half the nonsense you spewed. Come off it."

Yamato didn't think he would. "Shut up…" he said while getting himself back to that position he fancied over Taichi's warm lap.

A comfortable silence stretched for an undefined period of time. They were talking without talking and sharing heat through their bodies. No one felt like sleep was anything worth getting up for and separating over.

Taichi subconsciously stroked Yamato's hair, fingers gliding through the satin strands and moving the layers from Yamato's forehead down to his long neck.

The monotony of the soothing motions sided with the easy proximity and made Yamato drowsy. He curled up cosily, drifting off a bit, can't help himself from loving Taichi's tiny touches.

"Hey… Yama?"

"Yama _to_ ," he corrected with irritation he didn't actually feel.

"How long have you gone without?"

A short respite happened in Yamato's breathing, before he counter-asked, "Why do you want to know…?"

"Because…"

Small furrows cut his forehead while Yamato attempted to do the maths, which proved to be too great an adversary at 4 AM. When _was_ the last time he had himself a body?

"Maybe close to a year."

Taichi nodded, letting the serenity of the hour revisit them for a little while longer. His knuckles sailed along Yamato's scalp and little shards of thought passed him by.

"You still love that person, don't you, _angel_?"

Taichi picked up the nickname from Yamato's shrilling fans and mocking him has become that much easier since. He hated it more than 'Knife of Ramen' – which was impressive. Yamato could shove a dynamite stick into a pile of babies on stage, but that wouldn't help him defeat the power of stupid people in large numbers. Not when those were steadfast in maintaining a beautified image of him.

Frankly, Taichi understood where their misplaced logic came from. Those blue eyes and gold hair could fool anyone who didn't know better. Not that they wanted to know, either. People were like that – too afraid of reality.

But the real kick Taichi got out of 'Angel' was that Yamato shared the title with a famous local groupie. The woman wore more makeup than a drag queen, rocked heels which put porn stars to shame, and lurked around band members like a scavenging bird over the battle of Stalingrad.

Using said nickname was Taichi's special privilege, though. No one else in Yamato's vicinity dared, but Taichi got a free pass on that one after he rallied the entire football club, their fans, and the cuisine club to buy tickets to a KoD gig back when they were still in high-school. It was so much fun hurling insults at someone who won't go all miffy-tiffy-boo-hoo over it.

Also, it was a way to ask a serious question while maintaining the casual atmosphere.

A pregnant pause ruled over the room during which Taichi sensed Yamato becoming rigid.

Having been placed in a position where he was in charge of other people since the age of eleven has conditioned Taichi to learn whatever possible about them. He was brilliant when it came to reading them at their core and recognizing in them what they couldn't see in themselves. This was truer for the one person who challenged him at every turn more so than for anyone else. So much so that Taichi refused to abandon him and was willing to risk his life to prove to Yamato that he _did_ believe in friendship and _is_ a good friend. Where Yamato condemned himself, Taichi validated him. Taichi's faith in Yamato was so real, it was something worth putting his life on the line for. Now, he had a knack for detecting those meaningless little details most people wouldn't bother with about Yamato. How Yamato stirred his coffee or what side of the bed he fell asleep on. Nonsense like that.

So no, Yamato wasn't flustered to have that question turn up between them now. He wasn't even upset. He just accepted it with bitter irony. The situation of spelling out to the oblivious subject of his most raw emotions how he feels about him, while making sure that status-quo of ignorance remains solid, was beyond comically absurd.

"You never stop loving someone you _really_ loved, Taichi. You get used to the idea of them not being there and that's it." He went lax in Taichi's lap again, finally allowed to drop the host act so he could be weary of everything, and blinked at the square of Taichi's nightshirt he'd been gawking at. "Or not the way you want them to, anyway."

"But then anyone else who comes along is just a fake substitute, aren't they? They're something you compromised on."

Upside down, Yamato looked at Taichi. He was rubbing tiredness from his eyes with the back of his hands – the spitting image of an eight year old before bedtime. Things like that screwed with Yamato's mind: how loveable, and innocent, the guy who exposed himself to every side alley in the city can be. Then again, being sexual doesn't stop someone from being naïve.

"Yeah… They are," he answered, quietly, reforming his faded smile into a smaller and sadder version of itself. "And it doesn't even matter what kind of love we're talking about. Think about it – no one and nothing could ever take Agumon's place in you."

Yamato watched Taichi watching him and was a bit contented. He went on talking, because at these hours you either don't talk at all or you wiggle your tongue nonstop till it becomes clinically unhealthy. "I think only Gabumon, you, and Teeks miraculously manage loving a defect like me. And he's my brother." He made laugh-like voices, but there was no real mirth to it – though no sorrow either. A neutral something. Yamato was good with those, which is a completely useless talent since they don't mean much of anything. It's almost like when people emote too much just so they won't have to deal with the fact they are so far gone into apathy that nothing means anything, and they don't care if they wake up dead.

Taichi protested. "That's such a pile of sappy rubbish! It's enough to barely be able to _squeeze_ into one of your concerts to see how many people love you!"

' _Ugh.'_ Yamato knitted his brow. "Many people want to fuck me. It's not the same, Taichi."

Taichi wanted to argue but there was nothing to argue about. "I know," he said and apologised through a stupid smile. Yamato told him to wipe it off his face and flicked him on the forehead.

"Thank you for telling me… about everything," Taichi said with a softness that sent all those fleshy adrenaline pieces inside Yamato's body fluttering.

"Thank _you_ …"

'… _for being here'_

"You make me feel like I want to feel…" It was like a whisper when Taichi said that. Talking was getting hard.

Yamato didn't know how to answer that either way, so he didn't say anything.

Another quiet intermission put an end to the discussion.

Unable to let any thought leave any meaningful residue, Taichi was perfectly content at the moment with staring blankly at the wall. He glanced over at a sleepy Yamato on his thighs, who was blinking heavily and finding the timber of his angular ceiling positively fascinating.

Taichi leaned over and kissed Yamato's right temple. He had his hand on the side of Yamato's face after untwisting some hairs he'd twirled around earlier. Taichi lingered in it. Everything was so drawn out, it's like they were in pea soup, only instead of peas the main ingredient was Dali's paintings. He had existential thoughts about the texture of Yamato's forehead under his lips.

It required a few good seconds for Yamato to restart his cerebral cortex. It wasn't until an Adam's apple which wasn't his own left his side in a flash of brown that he realised what happened, and felt spit on his head.

Taichi never ventured trying this before – kissing him, that is. It was affectionate in a way they hadn't had prior, and Yamato wondered what triggered this amplification in Taichi's hug-y persona. But now Taichi looked as distressed as being tired and mildly sloshed let him be, and he peered down at Yamato.

"Sorry, 'Mato."

"It's fine." Yamato was too lazy to do anything other than let himself enjoy this gesture and read nothing into it. "You all right?"

He asked because he should. Otherwise, it was some boring, obligatory question he had to get out of the way. Yamato could smell Taichi's issues like a dog, and there was no bad air around him right now. Yamato, very complacently, rolled his arms over his head, bowing his back over the firm legs he adopted as pillows. A very satisfied, warm kitten.

"Taichi?"

"I don't know."

"Did you want to kiss me?"

"Would I do it if I didn't?" What kind of a dumb question was that? But then Taichi remembered he's the one going 'round smooching people without permission. "Sorry I did that," he repeated.

"I said its fine. Get over it. You can do whatever you bloody want, all right?" Yamato hit his fist on Taichi's chest, and stared at him again. "Why did you do it, though?"

"Guess I'm tipsy and you look like cosy?" He mildly shook his head from side to side, but stopped 'cause doing it hurt. "Let's brush it off as one of those weird friends' moments and never talk about it again."

Yamato snorted a short laugh. "Agreed!"

Taichi shifted around and plopped till he was partway between lying _next_ to Yamato and _on_ Yamato. He snuggled up to him, draping an arm over Yamato's waist to form their favourite couch-pose while his other hand rubbed small circles on Yamato's shoulder. Once half his arse was almost slipping off the cushions, he started talking with his bedridden voice, and Yamato felt whatever Taichi was saying rattling his skeleton better than he heard it. "You can flash your devil-may-care smile as much as you want to everybody else, but talking about what you want – future or relationships and shit – makes your face go into a full Lego-stepping mode. You look like you got a bad case of cerebral palsy. I can see it on you..." When he wheezed through his nose, the damp air left patches of stuffy warmth on Yamato's collar, making him itchy and sticky. "I hate it. It's like the world is moving by and you're watching it go from the side and without a sense of time. I hate it when I can't do anything when you're sad. So… you know… I just figured. I… you – you know…"

One of the best things about Yamato was how Taichi didn't _have_ to tell him he loved him. Yamato just understood it. He understood when Taichi was _really_ saying it. Likewise, Taichi understood it was mutual. They said it twice; Taichi to Yamato once, and the other way around some time after, but they never _had_ to. Besides, repeating a word makes it lose its meaning. If they didn't need words and they didn't need them said, they didn't waste them. Very convenient the whole arrangement is.

Taichi's nose traced gentle patterns against Yamato's nape until it burrowed in Yamato's hair and inhaled. Yamato jumped to his feet and walked over to the counter to fetch the measly remains in the whisky bottles. The vibrations from Taichi's rumbling baritone so close to Yamato's throat while he was talking about _that_ of all things made the hairs there stand. Fucking _god_! It's when Taichi did these things to Yamato, to show he cared, that it was impossible for Yamato not to downright yearn for him. So much, it was giving Yamato physical pains. And Taichi did it often. Often and easily. Yamato was one wank away from a stroke.

Shit. He needed to get away before his hairs weren't the only thing standing, and remind his southern regions this was yet another false alarm.

"I too, Taichi. You."

But, _man_ , a hot, steamy session of shameful hate-sex with Taichi would be amazing – not that Yamato ever doubted it, but it's good to have that theory encouraged here and there. So good, it would almost be worth fighting with him only to get into that 'so angry it turns me on' zone. No one, in the entire world, could make Yamato want to deck and kiss somebody simultaneously the way Taichi did.

About a single shot remained in each of the fancy glass containers, so he ripped open the top of the bottles and poured himself the Johnnie Walker while leaving it to Taichi to cradle the Laphroaig.

"Why _are_ we being sappy?"

Taichi 'meh'd. "What doesn't kill you-"

"-will regret not finishing the job properly!" Yamato completed, half-talking over Taichi while clinking their tumblers.

In seven out of ten cases, alcohol was good for elevating the mood. Alcoholics and accident-prone individuals were to blame for the other three cases. Taichi was also pretty damn good at it – lifting a mood. He just had that effect on his environment. He was a tall bottle of scotch wrapped up in muscle.

Yamato downed his portion in a single gulp, letting the honey-brown liquid sear its way down his throat and light a small fire in his tummy. He lifted his head again and smiled at Taichi gently. It was meant to promise Taichi Yamato was fine.

The smile Taichi returned was smaller and he visibly exhaled, so Yamato said, "Sometimes life is bloody swell. Sometimes I feel like I walk over a giant pile of shit. Didn't ever stop me before, in'it?"

Taichi decided to not push this. "So what's the sleeping arrangement? Can I sleep over with you?"

"Heh-"

"I'm so out of it, if I'll try doing the sheets, I'll fall on my arse and break it. You'll have to wipe all my spilt shit off your floor."

"Thanks for the image, mate."

Yamato thought for a moment. As a month, August was like the mouth of a whore right after a day's labour – humid and nasty. Last time he and Taichi slept in the same bed together, they got naked halfway through the night and Yamato woke up, drenched, with nothing but a small pair of boxers serving as a partition between his arse and Taichi's Captain America-clad junk. Largely 'cause Taichi was cuddly and fancied being the big spoon in his sleep. It was a wonderful-awful thing. Sometimes Yamato was up for it, but if Taichi weren't there, Yamato would have slept with nothing on. It was a mood thing, really.

Yamato had a semi-boner at the moment that nagged to be taken care of, before it became a mighty unkind ordeal. "Sorry 'Chi, I want my space tonight. Go on then, piss off. G'night."

"You're just inconsiderate." Taichi pouted on purpose. One, he hated arranging the futon for real, and, two, it was nicer for him to have a warm body next to him. But he accepted his sheet-ridden and Yamato-less fate. "Right. Night, blud."

Yamato hurled himself to his room like a shot from a ballista the moment he was out of sight, leaving Taichi to throw the bottles into the recyclables' bag and take care of his business.

Taichi finished the last drops of his drink alone and went to pick up clean sheets from the spare cabinet before waddling his way down the staircase and into his room.

The law of the house was that whoever used the guest-room last was going to handle its maintenance; mostly because Yamato wanted excuses to drop housework on anybody he could pin it on. That, and because his father's continued funding was dependent on it. The man refused to allow yet another one of his flats to become a war-zone. So the day he moved in, Yamato gave Taichi and Takeru a motivational speech: _"This apartment will not be sullied by the folly of man! This place will transcend into Shangri-fucking-la!"_ And he took them on a tour through the cupboard designated for cleaning utensils, _before_ giving them permission to go to the loo. 

Flipping off his slippers without bothering about where they landed, Taichi went to fetch a glass of water to battle the oral drought he was 100% going to wake up to.

Outside his room, the house was under the shroud of early morning violets, with only the silhouettes of inanimate objects giving distinction to the overcast dawn.

He padded along the wooden parquet into the kitchen, but halted midway.

Taichi wasn't sure how much faith he should put in the acuteness of his hearing at this ungodly hour. Most of him was downright numb. But what's with that weird noise? Was a street cat dying in the house?

He tried shutting out other senses, concentrating on nothing else but the low thrum of the sleeping world.

It was coming from Yamato's room.

' _Son of a-'_

It _was_ Yamato.

The muscles in Taichi's throat compressed and his heart went racing past his ears and back.

Was Yamato all right? Was he crying? Was _Yamato_ crying?!

He hadn't cried since they were eleven. Not that Taichi had witnessed anyway, and he guessed the blonde-brewing-into-explosion would've gotten pretty sore pretty fast if Taichi had. Not for any bleeding macho reasons; he just didn't fancy the way people reacted to tears. Especially since he himself wasn't remarkable in his own reactions, either.

Taichi could be pushy – he acknowledged as much. Usually, Yamato knew how to push Taichi off him. They got a bit intense there, sure, but he reckoned Yamato would have cut him off if Taichi grated his nerves too much. If Yamato _was_ crying, he may murder Taichi on sight if Taichi walked in on him.

On the flip side, there was a good chance Taichi would stumble on the right thing to say and both would make it to the morning in one piece. Besides, if he didn't, whatever it was could get worse.

The door was slightly ajar, so Taichi pushed it out of the way just enough to stick his head through. He wanted to check up on Yamato and help him if he can. Pray to all the deities, which probably couldn't care less, that if this was somehow his fault, he didn't break anything which couldn't be unbroken.

Taichi stopped dead in his tracks, feet planted in place.

It was still absolute night on this side of the house. The half-moon sieved through the thin drapes and dyed the room in ethereal silvers and blues; a cold shimmer which bounced off Yamato's lithe body as it rocked gently into the mattress.

He laid on his stomach – long, fit legs still wrapped in black, thigh-high stockings and the three lines of the silky tongue drew triangles on his back. One of his hands was hidden from sight, intimately tucked between his thighs. With the other he dug into the flesh of his shoulder, making himself feel beautiful.

Yamato was _fine._

It was Taichi's jaw that was in danger of becoming bloody unhinged. It dropped so low it probably hit an underground dwarf city!

' _Why can't he close the damn door?! Was he born on a bleeding bus or something?!'_

But at the same time, Taichi couldn't deny the way Yamato's narrow waist curved just that tad bit, how the full-bodied cheeks of his ass could fit into Taichi's squeezing hand to perfection, how smooth Yamato seemed to the touch, or how his hair was strewn on the white pillow like a soft crown of light. How, behind closed lids, there were eyes no one else had.

Taichi wanted to look at him. Just look at him.

A moment like this was so rare.

He almost wanted Yamato to open his eyes and look back just so Taichi could see them and know how they were like right now.

Maybe there was something in Taichi that wanted to see Yamato through the lenses of everyone else. See the face and the body that caused so many brains' electricity dispensation to short-circuit, and made them all fall for him so hard. See the body everybody wanted to fuck so badly all the time.

And here, Yamato almost looked like a teenage girl who has only now started discovering her sexuality. Taichi was drawn to it with the force of pure disaster. A beautiful disaster which prophesied his death one letter at a time.

A part of his consciousness, the healthy, sane, and normal one, told him he should move away and pretend it didn't happen. He hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary anyway. Getting off was a natural thing males their age did in the privacy of their rooms.

Same side also reminded him that if the roles were reversed, he would have felt violated; that he was infringing on an incredibly private moment.

Taichi didn't even know guys do it in the pose Yamato was in. Wasn't it better with the dick up? So he could pretend he was making a girl ride him or having her mouth there?

Until Taichi saw a gentle roll of milky hips.

Oh.

' _Shit. Right. Yama… wants men.'_

Taichi was reallyfeeling it.

' _Yama wants dicks.'_

Rationally, Taichi didn't want to feel like this.

' _Yama wants to have big dicks up his arse that can fill him out.'_

But he also wanted to.

Taichi distinguished Yamato's explicit scent from that of his room; the sting of smoked tobacco, or floral tea, mixed with something unique to Yamato's body. He also wondered if Yamato's skin was as soft as it used to be when they were eleven.

Yamato licked his lips, smearing gloss against their full plumpness.

' _Do it again, Yama.'_

Without warning, Yamato's shuddering back arched over the mattress and he buried his face inside the pillow to hush what he could no longer control.

It was a brutal wake-up call and it flung Taichi out of his trance.

' _Run!'_

' _ **RUN!'**_

What the _fuck_ did he almost do just now?!

Taichi dashed to his room and slunk underneath the sheets, his heart doing 260 kilometres per hour. The collective imagery of everything he'd just witnessed and everything he'd thought looped in his mind faster still.

Surrealism at its finest. Most people would have sold their kidneys to the black market for a chance to see Yamato like this. And there he was, Taichi Yagami – best friend and leader to Yamato Ishida – who, until today, was completely innocent of any Yama-sexual thoughts, getting a private show, front and centre seat. There he was, reacting.

What the shit?! How many times was he dropped on his head as a baby?! This is _not_ normal. This is so not normal.

So why was Taichi feeling like this? Why was he…?

There was another voice, intoxicated with endorphins, and it whispered – ' _ **you**_ _ **haven't been normal for nine years now, y'know?**_ _ **And who wants to be normal anyway if they miss out on this?!**_ _ **Think about those skilled fingers from earlier… imagine what they can do to your-'**_

The thought was so dangerously delicious. It bubbled in his midsection and rushed all the way down, so fast Taichi almost went down with it.

The voices in his head started bickering. Sort of like that angel-and-devil-on-your-shoulders number they used to do in American cartoons like Looney Toons or Tom & Jerry. Due to his personal involvement, Taichi preferred calling them Fraying Sanity and Carnal Stupidity.

Only his devil was winning big time, because Taichi's body was _yearning_ for attention. He couldn't even register when his palm dropped into his pyjama bottoms and eagerly squeezed the heavy protrusion growing on his crotch.

He swallowed and gnawed on the inside of his cheek but still ended up with a dusty mouth.

The sultry moisture which had already stained the inside of the fabric brushed against the back of his hand in sticky brocades.

' _This is…'_ like this… in his room… on his bed… inside his mind… was all right…right?

Familiar heat bubbled in the pit of his tummy. It was a fantastic thing – he loved it when super-hot girls made him feel this way. Especially if he got to fuck them.

Gravure models, ecchi, that AV he saw on Wednesday, that girl – a few wanks and it'll be over.

But it's not it. What Taichi saw here – he couldn't stop himself from… _something_.

Roman and Yuri's words echoed through the space between his ears. Bits of their conversation were reiterated to him in between his attempts to recapture the litany of Yamato's small and insanely sexy pants in his mind.

Boys had a point, and Yamato was not hard on the eye. Not hard on the eye at all. He was bloody gorgeous, actually. So sexy it hurt. Very lick-able too. And Taichi did always like Yamato's face.

In fact, if Yamato had lady parts instead of a prick, Taichi'd probably have taken him already and they would have been at it like dirty monkeys.

Yamato'd look so sweet after a proper snogging session too. Those peachy lips would be all red and puffy, his complexion flushed and warm. Bluer-than-blue eyes, hazy like Taichi had never seen them before, asking for more. Much more. And Taichi would give it to him.

' _Yama will love my dick…'_

Taichi gave himself a tug and his balls pulled into the motion. He may have had the habit of not refusing girls as a whole, but he had a special affinity for petite, bright-eyed blondes and Yamato was _oh-so_ blonde.

' _ **He always stood out in the crowd for you, ey? Has it occurred to you maybe your taste in girls stems from being around him for so long?'**_

' _My fucking god_.'

He rubbed the underside of the crown, gently in the in ring formed between his thumb and index.

' _ **Hot things are hot. What does it matter what he has between his legs?'**_

Taichi wanted to submit to the high of temptation unhindered. Maybe _because_ the lucid parts in him were making him disgusted with himself and there was nothing left for him to do but show them the finger. Maybe _because_ he was the type of person who, when falling, wanted to see how much further down the abyss goes. Or maybe _because_ , to him, the fruits he was not allowed to have tasted sweeter.

No matter the reason – he hadn't been this horny since the first time he dipped a finger inside a girl's dingy panties. 

He wrapped his clammy fist tighter around himself and pumped into it with every sway he could remember of Yamato's strong hips – the earlier docile motions replaced with something far more impatient and demanding in Taichi's head.

Taichi thought about how Yamato's eyes were closed in concentration or about how his mouth formed those funny sex shapes and choked screams of pleasure on the verge. How, despite his attempts, every now and again his breath came out in vague whines.

When Yamato bowed over the bed, the strain from the thin strings forming that blasted tongue made the skin around them blush bright red. One may think Yamato had been a very naughty boy and got spanked a bit. The idea slapped a smile on Taichi's lips. If it were up to him, he'd bend Yama over his lap and make his pale, little bum raw-red all over like a shiny raspberry.

Despite his efforts, once or twice Taichi thought he heard a name on those lips back then, so he ignored it. He didn't want the moment ruined by someone else's presence.

As far as Taichi could recall, Yamato always had a talented tongue. It sung beautiful lyrics and lashed out with indomitable wrath. Lately, it's been used on other people in ways Taichi didn't want to imagine. But right now he honestly wouldn't hate it so much if that tongue, and the mouth around it, were used on him. Or that hot, desperate voice – if it was his name there, it won't be so bad at all.

' _God! Fucking god!'_ Everything about it drove his hand mad with an increasingly fierce rhythm. Taichi wanted to grab that pretty head, push Yama between his knees, and make him take Taichi's cock till it pocked Yamato's larynx. Watch those succulent lips stretch wide and wrap around him. Of course, Taichi'd tower over him and enjoy the show with a wicked grin that's all filth.

' _ **And that melodic**_ _ **singer's voice. You know just how fantastic it can be. Imagine it hitting those high notes when he'll be screaming your name…'**_

Between the gutters his mind was swimming in and whatever was left of his sense of judgement, another small voice, at the back of Taichi's head , which seemed to be his voice of reason, chirped. Said voice terrified Taichi beyond reason because it asked him difficult questions.

' _Why would you hate it? Why would that be weird? Sex is just another thing you can throw into the equation of things you do together. It's the most natural thing in the world when you stop and think about it.'_

Dampness gathered in Taichi's hand and it accompanied the familiar tightening in his balls. The insides of his thighs were sweaty and burning hot. He loosened the grip around his heated erection. He had enough experience in the field to know the best part has yet to come and he knew his way around peaking.

Taichi relaxed and enjoyed each and every movement of what he considered was the proper way Yamato should be fucking himself in front of him. A vision of everything right in the world.

In Taichi's vision, Yamato is bringing two fingers to his quivering mouth and sucking them hard before dragging them along the side of his trembling body, sullying himself with glistening, moist trails. When he reaches the tiny thong snuggled tightly between his cheeks, he violently yanks it out of the way and is blindly slipping the sleek digits ruthlessly inside. And then comes that pretty moan.

Taichi bit his lower lip, killing a savage groan, and tasted copper. But he couldn't care less for pain.

There is nothing in the world except the dark pucker waiting between Yamato's legs. The only thing that exists for Taichi this moment is the timid pace of Yamato's disappearing fingers as he pushes them from behind into what Taichi _knew_ was a tender boy-pussy. Now he's moving them in and out and in and out.

To think that, on the other side of the wall, Yamato was doing the same thing. It was a lovely thought – that they were in this together. Was Yamato thinking about Taichi like this as well? Did he ever think about Taichi like…?

Something in Taichi flipped and all he could do was beg in his mind for his best friend of nine years to fuck himself harder and take it deeper. Finger-fuck himself hard into completion. Taichi shut his eyes, tossing his head harder into the pillow while pumping his hip up and clutching the sheets. He barely noticed when he matched his stroking to the rhythm Yamato dictated in his head.

Yamato is adding one more finger and riding all three back and forth, meeting the thrusts of the invisible phantom he imagined above him with aching groans.

Taichi's exhales came ragged and broken and, in seconds, he was off like the Apollos. He came so hard, he almost fell off the bed straight on his arse. Each of his muscles coiled and he burst in long, thick waves, coating everything from his wrist down with layers of sticky cream.

He already released himself today, right on the jacket of that fit bird he met after the match. He didn't think he'd have much more to give, but there it was. Lots of it.

Taichi withdrew his sullied hand from his satisfied loins and hated every single cell in his body.

And the fucking cherry on top? He was still shaking from the force of his climax – like his body decided to hit the clubs, pump it up in some hardcore rave all nice and proper, and leave his conscience at home to slit its wrists.

If it was anatomically possible, Taichi would have vomited himself. He didn't want to be associated with the repulsive, carbon-based life form who wore his skin and walked around with his skeleton. He needed to choke that ghost who was using his lungs for respiration.

Thoughts ricocheted inside his skull. Taichi was giving hollow stares to the ceiling as it shifted from dark grey to the pinkish shades in the spectrum of the coming dawn.

Eventually, he smashed his pillow into his face and let out an incomprehensible noise. It was, in part, a groan, and half a scream which Taichi tried utilizing to rupture the clog in his throat.

He needed to sort himself something dreadful. He was exhausted and drank a bit too much. There was still a good chance he was being hysterical over nothing.

' _Right… I just tossed furiously after peeping on my best friend. Best friend who just happened to have the Y chromosome. Who was touching himself.'_

There was no way, _no way_ in umpteen lifetimes, Taichi could make any of this sound reasonable! This was an infringement upon a branch of voyeurism which was not meant to be infringed upon!

' _I am a despicable human being!'_

Taichi didn't even try fantasising about someone else while he was at it. It was all about _Yamato_. And it wasn't the friendly kind of thing guys did that verged on homosexual but was still acceptably straight, like comparing cock sizes in the school locker rooms or some other freak hobby like that. It wasn't like when he and Yamato watched something sexy on the telly and started masturbating discreetly on opposite sides of the sofa, each with his own dick, under two layers of fabric. Taichi even knew a couple of blokes who got each other off while fantasizing about busty slappers – and that was somehow _still_ considered within the happy-hetero-friends category.

Women had been evaporated from planet Earth when Taichi wanked! But, honestly, that was hardly the issue! If an anonymous man would have gotten Taichi hard – fine! Happens!

But this was _Yamato_.

Of all possible timings for his moral compass to steer South – why did it have to be now?! This should _never_ have happened. He should fucking go and die somewhere!

Taichi's head and his heart pounded with a synchronised rhythm, like a bloody time bomb ticking away the remaining minutes before he blew up into a fine paste of Beef Stroganoff.

He kissed Yamato earlier. It was painstakingly clear now that Taichi chewed it over. He said he just wanted to, and that's all fine and dandy, but on this side of the night it was more like a hogwash heap of excuses. Thing is – excuses for what, exactly?

Taichi wasn't going to get himself a wink of sleep and he bloody well knew that, so he settled for lying there and contemplating everything about the man in the adjacent room who was probably snoozing like a stoned log.

' _He changed so much.'_

Despite everything, a satisfied curl spread Taichi's lips.

' _He hasn't changed that much at all.'_

For Taichi, Yamato was and always will be Yamato. That bolshy. But even on days when the only thing Yamato could show him was his cold, spiteful back – as long as Taichi could see it, it was fine. He took and he took and he took Taichi in for everything Taichi was.

The Yamato Taichi knew, and almost no one else got to see, had so much character. When it was only the two of them, when Yamato lay down his guard, he was the only one who knew where to find Taichi when Taichi was lost. He could listen to what Taichi wasn't saying and tell the right thing to Taichi just like that.

As well as to frustrate Taichi to no end, of course. He was frustrating him right now actually.

A lot.

In many different ways.

Taichi wondered if Yamato was giving him grief on purpose. Knowing his mate – Yamato most certainly did sometimes.

Not that it ever matters. There is always something that pulls Taichi back to him.

He and Yamato – they changed each other somehow.

Taichi curled into a ball on the mattress till the position strained his back, and then pushed harder. He wanted Yamato to sit here and play the harmonica. He wanted to hear him syphoning his excess emotions and express all those things Yamato either didn't know how to say out loud or couldn't find words to say them with at _all_. It was a therapy they both could afford having tonight. Better than an overpriced psychologist anytime.

No, mate. No. Better, Taichi wanted to go to a hard gig with Yamato, where they'd break their necks, venting energy on two different sides of the stage. Yamato wrote new music with new people to a new audience. It was sick.

Taichi'd love to hear him sing about Takeru again. It was one of his favourite songs. Maybe because it contained so much affection and was so different from the band's usual numbers. Taichi remembered that evening very fondly…

" _Wow! You are some crazy bunch of bastards!" Yamato_ _yelled over the blinding stage lights to his screaming fans, "but for the next one I want you to rip this place apart! I want people on the other side of town taking cover under cars 'cause they'll think you bandits are planting bombs! I want you to make some noise for someone very special to me, my one and only brother – happy birthday, Takeru!"_

 _Taichi raised his fists into the air, shouting from his place on the left of the stage, every bit like the last member of the riled up audience._

 _Yamato's dual-stringed bass line hummed in the live venue, joined with the mellow rasp of the ride cymbal and drawled notes from the keyboard._

 _The vocals from his mouth at the edge of the microphone reverberated through the walls, the ceiling, and the cheering people._

" _ **I remember a world which knew not of tomorrows.**_

 _ **I remember a land which had no boundaries at all.**_

 _ **I remember us charting its mountains and meadows,**_

 _ **and always together – together as one, under its call."**_

 _The guitar picked up._

" _ **I remember the hope shining inside you.**_

 _ **I remember the rain as it washed down our tears.**_

 _ **I remember dark clouds which were pierced by the light.**_

 _ **I remember the angel who took you under his wings."**_

 _The double bass and the guitar blazed for the chorus and the high platform came to life with pyrotechnics._

" _ **Never forget!**_

 _ **No matter how far,**_

 _ **no matter the ends,**_

 _ **no matter the trials,**_

 _ **no matter the stands,**_

 _ **Never fear!**_

 _ **Because I will be beside you;**_

 _ **I am your brother and will always be here."**_

The melody retreated through diminuendo to its slower, more patient pace.

" _ **Where are you now? Child of white feathers who soars through the sky.**_

 _ **Where are you now? A wild flower blooming at the edge of the spring.**_

 _ **Where are you now? The road is unfurling before you.**_

 _ **Where are you now? I wonder what the future shall bring…"**_

 _A duet of the electric guitar and bass._

" _ **Seasons are changing and birds moving on.**_

 _ **Cold winds howl through the roofs once again.**_

 _ **Will you be here when the first snow starts piling, I wonder?**_

 _ **Or will you be somewhere out there? – chasing the edge of day."**_

 _Before the repeated chorus, Yamato took a swig from a clear liquid he had on stage and spit it against the lighter in his hand, raising a column of fire – like dragon breath! After that, all the instruments quieted down and the only thing alive was Yamato's soft voice._

" _ **We are two apples born of one seed.**_

 _ **We are two hearts beating as one.**_

 _ **Wherever you go – we smile under identical skies,**_

 _ **because you are my brother and we have won."**_

Yamato recorded their digital adventure into a song and people thought it was a criticism piece about modern slavery to technology or some-such. He and Taichi laughed hard at that one and downed a shot of Jack. Taichi did like Yamato's music; mostly on account of how happy it made Yamato and how much he loved performing it.

' _Those were good, simple times.'_

Taichi exhaled and the hot air trapped by the quilt returned to rub against his frown – sticky and smelling of his lager breath mingled with gunk.

He wanted to – no, _needed_ to rewind the evening and make some semblance of sense from the massive amount of 'FACTS!' jutting into his every waking second. Repeating: waking seconds, all of which full with 'FACTS!' jutting around with about as much finesse as a huge, pink dildo in the middle of a nunnery.

Taichi wasn't oblivious to himself. He played it like he didn't care, but it irked him – and it irked him a lot – that there was someone Yamato loved so much but didn't find Taichi worthy to share the information with. If they hadn't played that shitty game, Yamato would have been all too happy to pass this under Taichi's radar.

But mostly, it irked him because it's Yamato.

Who on earth was so important to him he would allow himself to be in such a vulnerable position? Who was so important Taichi couldn't know about? That's why Taichi pestered Yamato about it 'round the clock.

Something clicked in Taichi's head. Yamato and Sora's relationship fell apart _because_ Yamato wanted _that_ someone else even back then, right? _Because_ no matter how much he tried – _that_ person was irreplaceable to him. That scared Taichi a bit. It's pretty much what Yamato said, right? Anyone else was just a mockery of the real thing or a compromise.

Then and there, on his clammy pillow, Taichi hated love as much as he hated himself.

Sex is transient. Almost every living organism larger than a cell does that. It's no big deal. Maybe he didn't want all the gory details about whoever Yamato sucked off or got his ends away with, but Taichi didn't give too much shit about it either, as long as his mate didn't end up as a Petri dish for STD's.

But love?

And what about Yamato? Next clash with the Digital World – what will stop him from running like a maniac into the eldritch abomination of the week if it threatens his "love"? Taichi would? He better. Yamato or not, though, there was something about dragging outsiders into their group which didn't sit well with Taichi. Period. It was adding to their risk factors. Not only was it another person who'll potentially require instantaneous saving and get them sidetracked, but it's another mouth that can leak sensitive and dangerous information. Taichi could seriously do without spending another night of his life being interrogated by the police on repeat. He _still_ didn't fancy the idea of Jyou's girlfriend knowing what was going on.

Yamato looked up to Taichi to be his leader and Taichi had to make sure they all reached safety harbour – together.

Said leader desperately wanted to clamp onto that explanation and strive for it as though it was a beacon over dark waters, but it had one critical flaw: none of this explained why he, Taichi, got his rocks off seeing Yamato pleasure himself.

He wasn't sure what was going on, but something in him had started and refused to be undone. A Pandora's box of sorts.

Once – more than once – long ago, when he was still wearing those khakis and star-spangled T-shirt, he stayed up well into the night; kept awake with thoughts about someone who wouldn't stop arguing with him, getting on his tits, fighting with him, and making Taichi climb over him. Making him straddle him. Making him pin him to the ground. He didn't understand it then, when Yamato was wearing that sleeveless green top. Now?

Taichi admitted he was, both then and now, the type who liked the chase. He liked challenges. Yamato was always distant. He was a _constant_ challenge. Many walls had to be broken before Taichi found the human behind them.

A human he loved.

A human who loved him.

' _This, though…?'_ Taichi reached a resolution. _'It's a one-time slip. Yamato just happened to be there, way too early in the morning for me to make rational decisions about anything whatsoever, flouncing Mimi's undies and looking all proper girl. Why did he have those on anyway?! Is this his thing? Did he_ want _to feel like a girl?'_ Taichi breathed in. _'My brain's bugged. It got confused, is all.'_

And, shit, he was fucking moaning! Of course Taichi got hard!

His muscles unwound a bit, letting him finally relax into his bed.

Honestly, there were so many better things he should be thinking about. When will the upcoming volume of his favourite manga come out? What new formation should he try for the next football practise? Will The Girl of the Week have a D-cup? Those kinds of things.

He spent an ungodly percentage of his life trying to reconcile two worlds, stop both from falling apart, and prevent an Apocalypse-How. At least on weekends, he should be pardoned from the complexities of life and be pants-on-backwards stupid. He's fucking twenty – the majority of his ambitions revolved around living fast, dying young, and leaving a beautiful corpse behind, and that's how it'd bloody happen.

Tomorrow he'd check out gay porn. Somewhere in his mind, it registered that the idea of being attracted to his male best friend was far more horrifying than discovering he may be less than the vehemently straight person he believed himself to be.

He recently entered a prime position in life to experiment with those things anyway – the springtide age of university! Where he was allowed to drink without asking his seniors to buy the booze for him, take the car for a spin and generally fuck around while still living under his parents' roof and having his financial necessities covered.

If he happens to fancy the twig and berries like he fancies the muff… meh, no harm done. He'll excuse this night as the event which opened the door to a new world of man-on-man sexuality for him. If he's still a heterosexual – he'll blame everything on Mimi's thong and his resolution still stands.

But till then, a crucial question needed to be addressed – ' _What do I do now?'_ Yamato was the one Taichi counted on for getting him and then getting him the right support. ' _What would Yamato do if he were me?'_

' _ **Not be in this situation?'**_

What would he say to Taichi? What would he think about him? What _wouldn't_ he say to him? Not for the first time in his life, Taichi couldn't bring himself to look at Yamato.

Intellectually, Taichi wasn't ignorant of the fact Yamato had sexual sides. 'Is just the first time he was forced to view Yamato _as_ sexual.

Thing is… Thing is Taichi became aware there was this whole side to Yamato that he hadn't gotten to know. Some other people had. Some other person had.

It pissed Taichi off.

Away from the background noises in his head was a place where Taichi stood and looked at himself. There, Taichi told Taichi he wanted to know all of Yamato's parts – indiscriminately. He wanted to know _that_ part. He always wanted to know more 'Yamato' and get involved with him.

Right now, he couldn't stop imagining Yamato's naked body under the covers.

This was _so_ far beyond a conventional friendship.

' _But we never_ had _a conventional friendship. We never even had conventional_ lives _.'_


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: God thinks you're an idiot

Taichi was gobsmacked when he pried open sleep-crusted eyes, and gathered spit in his mouth to abate the stinging Sahara desert sensation in his throat. Oh, he remembered perfectly well why he didn't have his trusty water glass in his immediate vicinity. He didn't think he'd be able to fall asleep to begin with.

By the tall location of the sun, which hadn't torn through his window yet, he hadn't gotten much of it. Unsurprising, considering his alarm clock was a guilty heart palpitating hard – very hard – against the curved bones of his chest.

He swung his feet over the side of the bed, all begrudging and fucking pissy. He inhaled for four seconds and exhaled for five, taking his time to reconstruct the sound reasoning he found before he zonked out a few hours ago.

Plucking his comb from the bedside table, he moved its plastic teeth from the roots on his scalp to the thick of his tangled hair while making his way to the kitchen, lured in by the smell of sizzling yolks.

On the way, he snuck a glimpse into Yamato's room. It was mighty hard to miss the many crinkled rectangles of used tissue paper all bunched up on the carpet, a mere few centimetres below the ruffled fringe of his unmade bed cover.

' _At least one of us had a good night, ey?'_ The bitter thought flitted through Taichi's mind.

When he reached the first line of the ceramic floor tiles marking his destination, he had to stop and _look_. With one elbow angled, shaping his arm into a triangle, Taichi reclined against the wall and took a moment to soak in the bright scene: he – standing there and grooming himself for the new day, and Yamato – leaning over the cooker, making Taichi's favourite fried eggs with soy sauce, rashers, and leftover meatball gravy next to a batch of white rice.

How come Taichi never once paused to consider how easily, almost incidentally, they fell into each other's routines? Or why was this pretty, domestic picture which unfurled before him, now like every other Saturday, so much like a photograph taken from a couple's honeymoon album? Or that he could do this for the rest of his life? For the rest of _their_ lives?

On any normal day, he'd walk in, glue his face into the smooth spot between Yamato's shoulder blades, and hang from Yamato's back like a baby sloth till breakfast was ready. Then they'd breathe coffee.

Taichi examined the small room like it was the first time he entered it instead of the millionth. The ceiling, the walls, the aerial particles of dust whirled by invisible rivulets, the dirty dishes in the sink dripping with the slimy residues of eggs and tomato sauce – all were dipped in the golden hues of early noon.

And at the far end was Yamato, the sun casting a brilliant aurora around him. He was humming notes which sounded a lot like the birth of a new musical project, and flipping meat pieces in the pan with his bare fingers. He was a bassist, so he could do that. It was brilliant.

Taichi was about as functional as a legless zombie and his yawn almost split his face in two, but the tiny bits of consciousness he _did_ salvage all revolved around the man in front of him.

Said man, his best-friend-turned-gay-fantasy-overnight, wasn't wearing a bottom half – only a thin, loose-fitting sleeping shirt and a pair of short briefs which revealed to Taichi's roaming eyes the long sequence of Yamato's toned, slender legs.

' _Meh, at least he's no longer parading women's lingerie.'_

Taichi thanked the world for small miracles.

' _ **But… ya know… those top-notch, perky cheeks of his totally pull it off**_ _.'_

' _Brain, no! No! No one asked for your opinion!'_ Another wave of self-loathing hit Taichi like a monster battering ram – not that it prevented his gaze from lingering on the aforementioned piece of supple flesh. Not when it protruded so nicely from underneath the blue cloth, making the hem of Yamato's top flare a bit around it.

As a matter of fact, he was staring so long and so hard at the globes of Yamato's backside, he was surprised they didn't start staring back.

' _Sweet, merciful fuck, I am so messed up.'_

"Morning." His voice came out raspy and a bit scratched, like he spent the entire night smoking a packet.

A laid-back smile, expecting Taichi's adorable straight-off-the-pillow look, turned to greet him but evaporated before Taichi blinked.

"You look wretched. Like the inside of someone's arsehole."

Oh no! No! No! No! Taichi forgot Yamato had nipples. He didn't get a peek last night, but now – here they were! Poking right through Yamato's thin and so _devastatingly_ flimsy shirt, properly staring Taichi down.

In the two seconds since Yama swivelled around, Taichi had to get his head straight – well, _straighter_ – and remember how to operate his lungs. It somehow worked when he answered, "Why thank you, I don't know how I managed aiming my piss properly into the bowel so far without your striking powers of observation guiding my hand."

Yamato wasn't fazed by Taichi's deadpan mood in the slightest.

"What did you do all night? You look like a truck chock-full of manure ran you over, picked up your body, added it to the waste pile of _scheisse,_ and it all went _merde_ from there."

Taichi grumbled at Yamato's un-funny funny and slunk into his seat. While he had a profound appreciation for Yamato's rich vocabulary, he didn't fancy prompting him to unleash all his known synonyms for faecal matter. At least, not before their twelve PM breakfast.

"Bung over the salt – you all right, though?" Serious and gentle – in his own way – Yamato encircled Taichi's wrist, his finger-pads finding the prominent blue vein and the pulse under it.

"I'm fine. Sleeping just didn't quite go according to my foolproof plan."

Taichi handed over the desired salt shaker.

"You should really be 'bit more organised…"

But Yamato seemed peppy enough when he pulled two plates from the cupboard and poured half the contents of the pan into each, along with a bowel from the rice cooker. He placed Taichi's share in front of him, teamed with eating utensils, a milk carton, a kettle steaming with a cinnamon-heavy Indian chai, and a pot of black coffee as a hangover remedy for them both.

The fact Yamato insisted on having his morning tea even during the scorching heat of August never ceased to amaze Taichi. Then again, Yamato also left the central air working twenty-three hours a day so he could pretend it was still winter and sleep with a duvet while freezing everybody else over. Taichi swore that last summer his nuts had effectively shrunk into cashews over the course of a single Friday.

When he finished arranging the small, square table, he sat on the side adjacent to Taichi. Their knees met below the plastic surface and grazed against each other while Yamato dug into his own portion.

That picture Taichi thought about when he entered the kitchen resurfaced. He tried predicting by virtue of what and where he and Yamato would be one day – in some grey, unforeseen future. How will they be like when either one of them was married off to someone? Potential, futuristic people whose faces were currently nothing more than a blurry stain on top a generic human body inside Taichi's imagination.

Upholding that type of relationship on Yamato's end would be difficult, Taichi reckoned, since Yamato considered marriage an archaic establishment.

' _But he would be an amazing partner, wouldn't he?'_

Taichi sniggered and spent the next two seconds trying to sneeze out his big mistake that took the shape of milk climbing up his left nostril.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just figured Mimi has a point."

Yamato stared at Taichi expectantly, waiting for him to make sense while Taichi manoeuvred his chopsticks with all likeness to a food shovel.

"One day, you really will make someone very happy."

It was sweet.

It was supposed to be sweet; so much so the diabetes in the air was almost tangible for Yamato – or inside his arteries if he insisted on keeping up with semantics. But he wasn't much moved by the compliment or found it worthy to fake half a giggle for. There was only one 'someone' he wanted to make happy, and learnt the hard way there will not be another person to take Taichi's place.

"I guess."

The dish in front of Yamato suddenly wasn't appetizing. He started forcing it into his mouth just to prevent it from finding its demise along with his waning mood – somewhere in the gutter.

The hard and cold weight of realisation landed in Taichi's gut the moment the words were on the other side of his mouth. Straight up, like someone gave him the knee and plugged all the food-craving he had.

' _He will, won't he…?'_ Taichi could fold Yuri – who'd been lowkey nagging Taichi about Yama since the game, by the way – into an origami duck, cram him into a box, and ship him to Murmansk but there would always be someone else… probably… eventually. What would he do? Club everyone who goes after Yamato with a really big stick? _'One day, Yamato'll be happy somewhere else, make breakfasts for someone else and all this will be nostalgia.'_

"Taichi?"

Taichi glanced over to Yamato while moving the red edges of his chopsticks across the white of the egg as though he was drawing an abstract doodle. He punctured a hole in the mucus preserving the shape of the yellow dome, and inspected the yolk spilling over till it filled the margins of his plate. It gave him one more colour to paint his masterpiece with.

"It's breakfast, not the bloody National Gallery. You're supposed to eat it – not stare at it and evaluate its artistic properties."

Taichi couldn't produce words even if he puked them all over himself. He feigned ignorance when Yamato dealt him the 'glare of glares' and decided continuing his one-track-mind fascination with the wobbly edibles in his plate was as good a pass time as any.

"Right, I made a gorgeous meal. If you're not eating, I'm calling a bloody ambulance."

A cold hand covered Taichi's brow and Yamato's snarky attitude morphed into genuine concern.

His palm was callused at the tips but softer in the midsection, smelling a bit of the dissonant mixture of olive oil and a washing-up liquid for dishes.

Only his mother, and maybe Hikari once or twice, ever checked Taichi for fever like this. But their hands were small and dainty. Yamato's hand was large. Having the blatant component of a male added to the touch made the familiar gesture into something almost new and kind of foreign – but not uncomfortable.

Playing doctor and patient with Yamato had, momentarily, seemed like an interesting idea. It certainly had its appeal.

Taichi wanted to lean into the chill of Yamato's fingers and broaden the contact; land a small peck on his palm. Let Yamato take care of him, like he always has. _'I love you, Yamato.'_ It was in his body. At the same time, Taichi wanted to rip it away from him as if it was a big, fat and uninvited roach.

"You've been off since last night and you're a bit hot. You feeling alright? Want me to make soup?"

' _I love you too.'_

Taichi shook his head but remained unresponsive otherwise.

"Something happened…? Ammm… do you want to… talk… about it…?"

' _Fuck, trust Yamato to simply_ sense _when I'm out of it…'_

Taichi hated the worry laced in Yamato's voice. He always did know Taichi better than anyone else; always first to notice when something's wrong with him. Him being this observant wasn't a blessing this instant for either of them, though.

' _I mean, what am I gonna say?_ _'Righty-o, mate, sorry 'bout that – got an eyeful of you wanking last night and now I don't fancy seeing you with anyone till I pull my shit together. So, yes – this friendship of ours has just crossed some serious boundaries. Also, nice arse?'_

He wasn't going to lie either, but he was way too exhausted to come up with any intelligible explanation as to why he was acting like what the darkest secrets of McDonalds' looked like, or like an orgy of homeless people smelt.

All the smart things he convinced himself of last night were dying a slow, painful death along with his brain.

There was nothing he wanted more at the moment than to catapult his arse to his room, crawl into a bottle, and hit rock bottom before Hikari got home.

Yes, he was needlessly in hysterics due to being underslept – no, he couldn't do squat about it right now. "No, I don't want to fucking talk!"

' _God, it came out so wrong!'_

"Aright… no talk!" Yamato raised his arms in defeat and got back to poking his food instead of poking Taichi, but that pissed Taichi off even more for whatever reason. Taichi just sat there, glaring daggers at him like a right dolt!

' _Fine_!' Yamato scrambled to his feet, thrusting the chair backwards in the process, and slapped Taichi on the back of his head.

"What is your bleeping issue?!"

All he had to do was rile Taichi a bit further – till he gives him a bunch of fives – bring them to blows, get the war paints and a pig-head on a stick, scuffle around on the floor for approximately five minutes, and let Taichi vent his steam. Then they could discuss the sand which miraculously made its way up Taichi's anus like the two mature adults they were. Perfect.

The only issue with this plan was that Taichi didn't play along.

Taichi was simply not there.

That noon, Yamato slid the entire scale from being right chuffed, justifiably anxious, fucking livid, and royally confused before he even got to take the first leak of the day. By all accords, this was already a botched Saturday and he should turn on his heel, climb back to bed, and get his Diogenes of Sinope game on.

He had no idea what he did to get Taichi so pissed off or if he had any fault in this at all.

The fact he, Taichi Yagami, wasn't eating while food was _right_ _there,_ waiting to be gobbled down _,_ was a nagging which coiled around Yamato's spine and pinched his nerves. The more likely scenario should have been one where Taichi was raiding Yamato's refrigerator for leftovers and filling his role as a biological rubbish disposal. Yamato's entire set of inward workings united to become the dire horn of a sinking submarine.

"The fuck, Taichi?!"

Taichi shot up and stormed off before he had the chance to reform his ass-slapped face into a bearing less aesthetically offensive.

He appreciated everything Yamato tried doing on his account. He did. As a matter of fact, he appreciated it so much he could just kiss Yamato – and therein laid the problem. He can't stay here. If Yamato will say something to him… If he'd say something to Yamato… If he'd hurt him…

If it were anybody else, Taichi'd be more than happy to engage in some manful brawling, but even touching Yamato at the moment was far too much for the over-sensitized mess he was.

Before he put his hand on the handle – the only obstacle between him, the building's main stairwell, and getting the fuck out of here – a pale arm blocked his passage by slamming into the wall. For a moment, there was nothing in his line of sight except for those two cobalt irises that looked at him with sheer antagonism – but mostly with sadness. Deja vu.

"What's on with you…? What are you running from? Taichi? Please… just… what did I do?" His voice was far smaller than Taichi was able to face. Like it was taken from the 'Last Resort!' chapter in Yamato's guidebook on techniques for dealing with Taichi. Hurt. "What-"

"Just stop it, Yamato."

' _Shit, Yamato. Don't do this to me.'_ Taichi shoved past him without a word and heard "Tosser!" being sent after him.

Once on the stairs, he paused his escape and tilted his head towards Yamato, who still gauged him with the tenacity of a starved vulture who couldn't wait for the moment Taichi dropped dead.

"Look, mate, you didn't do anything wrong, aright? It's not you – it's me. So. Just leave me the fuck alone," and in a tiny instance of clarity which was very conscious of hurting Yamato, he added, "we'll talk later."

Didn't get to slosh around in his anvilicious misery for too long, though. Before he got to lay his first foot on the pavement, the informative vibration of his phone went off in his pocket. When he swiped aside the screen, the text message read: ' _Did your hangover just make you break up with me?!'_

Taichi recapped the argument between them. Less than a minute ago he really did, painfully, blurted out the line, 'It's not you–it's me.'

If Hikari had been here, she would have died. She always claimed their fights played out like lovers' spats and Taichi single-handedly proved her right while simultaneously taking it up to a whole new level.

Despite his glum mug, a small chuckle worked its way passed his clenched teeth.

' _Yamato, you bloody brilliant bastard!'_

For all Taichi's being smack dab in the middle of the street in his pyjamas, knackered, and more ashamed of himself than a stripper booked for her grandfather's birthday party, walking barefoot to his home and hoping his beloved mum would not see enough of him today to start wondering where and when did she and his father go wrong – Yamato still made him laugh.

' _Now that is friendship!'_

Yamato was all gaga when he handed the cashier the little plastic bucket.

It was high time he restocked on food. He had a bit of a weird OCD where he cooked when he was nervous or pissed off – and Taichi pissed him off.

He parked his scooter in front of the automatic door to the grocery store and shuffled through the isles for all manner of nutritious goods and for some goods of severely questionable nutritious value.

And there they were – gummy bears. Tartrazine, E-133, and other sorts of alphanumerical combinations representing colour, flavour, and stability enhancing chemicals, encased all lovingly just for him, spelling his thyroid lymphoma to be; his very own boxed cancer.

The gnarled pensioner behind the cash register flashed him a smile which was a bit too medicated, missing three teeth, and looked as though its owner didn't know what smiles were for.

"You don't… nyeto normalnie obed je doma?... Lunch home?" he asked with a sandpaper voice that matched his face, while passing the rubbery treats under the scanner.

Why people insisted on starting small talk, of all things, to fill in the vacancies in their miserable lives and why they always ended up being directed at Yamato was some shit beyond his grasp and even further from Yamato's will to investigate.

 _God,_ Yamato hated small talk. It's so fake. People you don't care about and who don't care about you talk about things no one cares about.

What was so terrible with listening to the world spinning in silence? And say they _had_ to open their traps and produce frequencies they hoped would find reception in someone – why can't it be something worthy to say?

This man had to have something better to talk about than Yamato's potential lunch menu.

Still, after piecing together the fractured bits of languages, Yamato answered with a gentle smile, "I'm all grown up. I can finally eat pudding before lunch."

This man's heavy accent and his slim grasp of how speech should be handled was a dead giveaway. He was one of the many who came here from far away, leaving an old sham of a life behind, in hope of a new home. But what he found was a strange land vacant of any sense of domestic welcome.

He was one of those who hadn't assimilated into the rest of society and sort of became enclosed in his small shell, where he could relieve poverty-stricken childhood memories about rusty merry-go-rounds and unhinged swings.

Maybe he left a family back there. He was probably lonely, and from his attempt to talk with Yamato, he probably convinced himself Yamato was a foreigner, like him. It was a neighbourhood like that. Yamato pitied him – or at least the image of him he had in his head.

"Cheers," Yamato called behind him when he left, the clerk's smoked, nasal laughter accompanying him all the way out.

Checking his phone, he noted it has been two straight days without that anthropomorphic personification of a terminal shit stain answering any of Yamato's attempts at communication. The discomfort he harboured since Saturday was mounting into small knife pricks of panic.

The last time Taichi acted like this the world almost went kablooey. Yamato was half expecting Ogremon and Leomon to pop up and start duking it out while the skies fall apart. Again.

Replacing the helmet in his Vespa's trunk with the nylon bags, Yamato revved up the engine only to turn it back off after a second.

He had to stop and stare at the commercial poster splayed in front of the mini-market for all to witness its unholy glory.

It featured a lovely, busty model, with nice umber curves in all the right places, and only a pathetic excuse for cloth, shaped like a tiny triangular bikini, to hold everything together and prevent this image from becoming restrictively rated 18+.

That, inherently, was not his problem. It wasn't about censorship. Yamato couldn't give a crap about censorship. Actually – fuck censorship. The less censorship exited the better. This was simply and plainly about good taste. While there was no doubt she was pleasing to the eye, what caught Yamato's attention was the penis substitute jammed between her humongous mounds of mammary fat in the guise of some brand-name ice cream cone.

If Yamato had to be shown chicks sucking allegorical dicks, he wanted it to be done properly.

Making Yamato cringe was no easy feat. It really wasn't – but this _thing_ had achieved just that. He had many questions for the producers, photographers, managers, and shareholders who allowed this atrocity to take form. Questions such as: How low did we go? Was this necessary? Why can't I even have ice cream without pitching a tent? And why are _my_ fetishes never catered to?

Now he was pissed off _and_ frustrated. He didn't want to have his face slapped like an arse so early in the day, but there it was and that just served to make him more pissed off and more frustrated.

Society isn't buying products anymore. It's buying the feeling conveyed through the medium – buying gilded emptiness, hoping to fill the hole in people's sad, hollow lives with bigger, better, shinier boxes. Escapism for the misinformed and uninformed. They don't even know what they are running away from yet.

But the hole continues growing exponentially. The big monopolies are more than happy to invest whatever resources required, keeping the greasy mechanism of this Lotus-Eater Machine in gear. They do it to distract consumers from asking the important questions about the holders of the company, about the seething underbelly of the business world, and about the stockholders. About anything really.

And how do they get to them? With primal needs.

Everything here is about sex nowadays. Everything – expect sex.

Sex today is about numbers, quantities and "How many?"-s or "How much"-s. Such as: how many cocks did you suck? How much did laying that fit, little bod' take out of your bank account? How much blood was in your alcohol stream when you banged? How many sperms do you think you still have in your box after your mobile phone fried it well-done?

Damn thing is overrated out the wazzoo; it's both sad and ridiculous. And the worst part about this trend is that this simple, natural act has been turned from biological to political.

In almost every civil conflict between government officials, in the press, or in public debates, sex is used as both leverage and a weapon. Proof? The practicalities of aerodynamics aside, rockets and missiles are all designed after the mighty schlong that is going to screw your country over.

Yamato laid the blame at the feet of the religions and traditions that demonized sexuality and made people suppress themselves. Or, rather, at the feet of the people who made up religions and traditions to suppress and control _other_ people's actions and thoughts, initiating the largest blue-ball fest mankind has ever known. It spanned several thousands of years and till today is still sending millions of humans to die at wars whose sole purpose is to affirm which absentee parental figure is better endowed.

' _Well, soldiers of faith who insist on extinguishing their lives on theological shores while putting their words in the mouth of god, any god, are an embarrassment to the creation they believe in and don't fucking deserve their days on earth.'_ Yamato's loaded with grudge against the world.

It's not that he had beef with religious individuals on principal. Not at all – freedom of thought and belief and yada yada – only with anyone who used it to try telling him what to do.

Oh! And then there is the hilarity called USA fundies! A term whose reincarnation Yamato appreciated best in the form of the comically horrifying site: FSTDT. Though to be fair, every country has a percentage of its populace that is one sandwich short of a picnic basket in the kind of way which makes even some of the more orthodox folks cringe.

Their rectums are probably stretched to the width of Saturn's rings by now with all the bullshit these people pull from out of their arses.

Sanctimonious arse-holes should just burn.

' _Sex is an epicentre of human biology and most humans are sexual. Get fucking over it and stop guilt-tripping. There's nothing wrong with natural desires or with treating them.'_

For the most part, though, the repressed phase was done with, everything blew over and sex was plastered over anything to a point where it was no longer sexy.

But what Yamato resented most was the way films, books, and popular, 'entertaining' mass-media _portrayed_ sex. Most human beings residing in modern countries already knew to mistrust commercials, but many were still duped by the pretty lights and sounds emanating from the screens: If it isn't the work of the Devil itself or bad Kami or something, as some of the former religious types claimed, it was an outer-worldly, heavenly experience.

Magical sex fairies lit pink candles and spread rose petals around a couple that hit a hundred orgasms per second. And they were always ridiculously good looking. Hell, everything in those films, series, and books was ridiculously beautiful. Too beautiful.

The sky was beautiful, the room was beautiful, the windows were beautiful, the Egyptian cotton sheets were beautiful, the single use coffee set was beautiful, the janitor with the oil drippings on his jumpsuit was beautiful. Screw that – even the blob of snot someone left on the shower-room's counter was photogenic as sin and bloody damn beautiful!

In fact, it was so beautiful it may as well have been inserted as an active participant in the party!

Really, the sceneries had everything short of an angelic choir to remind the average viewer just how _ordinary_ and _uninteresting_ he or she was with their perfectly _normal_ sex life.

It was so sterile, just like the photo-shopping done to this model – something fake which spiked in Yamato the need to rip it apart.

Life wasn't sterile. It was grimy and gritty and dirty and raw. It was full of shit and all that manure was the fertilizer which made flowers bloom. That's what made it so beautiful and worth living.

Who's writing this entire "utopia for the masses" rubbish?! Was this the product of a bunch of virgins in their fifties who were brainwashed by Disney and are still waiting for their Prince Charming or Sleeping Beauty to drop by or something?

Who was the target audience for that crap anyway?

Yamato sure as fuck didn't fancy singing the god-damn Hallelujah every time jizz came out of his dick! It being outside his balls rather than inside his balls was rewarding enough all on its own!

Sex is dirty and smelly and stupid and funny and innocent and awesome, in both the regular and the biblical sense, and when someone gets lucky – it's sexy as well. People make funny faces and there are all sorts of weird squelching noises and wet stuff all over the place. It's hilarious; practically nature's way of having a wild laugh.

The natural process of it is what makes it so fun!

Sex is good as it is and there is no need for embellishments. If no one needs to prettify two buffaloes in Africa bumping uglies on National Geographic – the same should apply for humans.

A gazillion different types of relationships exist out there and what the good ones have in common is how they are not about an endless honeymoon sex in five star hotels. Most of them don't involve sex at all!

They're about farting in bed and laughing together after. They're about knowing you fight and argue sometimes, and will fight and argue in the future, but also about compromising and making sense and listening. They're about honesty and communication and shared experiences rather than similarities. They're about what feels natural. The little things. It isn't about 'being nothing' without the other person, but about _choosing_ to be with each other.

On a similar note, Yamato didn't fancy how love, intimacy, and sex were often lumped together like they were one and the same.

They weren't; seriously weren't.

Sure, it's nice when the whole package comes together but, more often than not, people aren't that lucky. Most people don't love who they fuck and don't fuck who they love. Intimacy isn't necessarily on the table in either case.

Taichi's received more oral service than anyone Yamato has ever met – maybe more than Ron Jeremy – but he didn't love any of those girls. Yamato had his own score but those precious three words were only made audible on his lips when he directed them at his brother, at Gabumon, at Taichi himself or, when Yamato felt kind, at his reflection.

Love and intimacy are rare; sex – not so much.

If you love everyone, you don't love anyone.

But escapism and edited, partial portrayals of human existence were not exclusive to adverts and films. The concepts of real and fake are far too intertwined in the collective consciousness. Too many individuals retreat more and more to the confines of their protected spaces and niches. Society is swarming with those promoting censorship over dialogue, those who don't want to have significant debates, don't want to hear opinions different from their own or to have their world views challenged – and pluralism be damned. They are building monoliths and are becoming increasingly afraid of having that bubble poked; or even of asking questions. Was it always like this and he just now noticed it or did it become a trend?

It was a shame. Without challenge, there can be no growth.

Everyone can use a break from life once in a while and that's respectable, but life is so beautiful, its beauty often goes overlooked.

As a child, Yamato frequently lost himself between the pages of fantasy stories, and always wanted to be one of those explorers who go on adventures in imaginary worlds with dragons and kings and magical rings. But when he grew up, he realised the real stories of real people were at least as interesting if not far more so. The simple, trivial aspects of everyday life were _truly_ beautiful as long as they were told correctly.

Then, of course, he was sucked into a parallel universe where he had adventures with monsters and that just proved his point. His and the Chosen Children's lives were testament that truth is stranger than fiction.

He gave a huge sigh – not that the eviction of air helped him any. He checked the date and time on his phone again.

Two days, three hours.

"Taichi…"

He started typing another vengeful text, regretted it, and gave up on demolishing the last shreds of his pride by begging for attention like a mutt.

Yamato didn't know how to react or what to do any longer. Not a single bone in Taichi's body was phony or untrue in any way. His emotions flew freely across his stupid face. ' _Bloody hell,'_ but Taichi couldn't sugar-coat things to save his life.He wasn't the type to play psychological games with people. More than that, Taichi wasn't someone who's easy to faze, so what the fuck is going on?!

The instances of him acting like this – cold, distant and passive – were rare enough, but it was even rarer for that faze to make him so unresponsive _even_ towards Yamato. And _even_ Yamato had no idea how to go about it back than either. He tried everything from beating Taichi up to talking him down.

There were few things Yamato wanted more in this moment than for Taichi to turn around the corner and punch Yamato's spleen out through his spine. He didn't mind going home with a few extra red and purple blotches. He just wanted Taichi to do _something._

But so help him if Taichi was ever simple. He was one of the most complicated, intelligent people Yamato had ever met and he was _too_ good at hiding his motivations when he wanted to. That's what worried Yamato the most – Taichi often… internalizes his struggles.

It's one thing to bicker or get physical – that was a direct result of how far they got under each other's skin. It's a whole different story when someone like Taichi, who used to be the loud mascot for 'happy go lucky' in his eleven-year-old incarnation, goes past the point of being moody, or even depressed, and becomes detached.

Yamato hated this. He hated not knowing what's going on. He hated being useless and it hurts him that he can't fix the problem. Most of all, he hated not being able to understand Taichi.

Every time Yamato reminded himself the change happened overnight, with no foreshadowing whatsoever, he felt like an invisible hand slid ice beneath his shirt and down his back. Despite rationale pointing to the contrary, a nasty little voice sitting on his cortex tried convincing him he was somehow the one to blame.

The same questions rioted in his head, again and again, like a mosh pit in a Black Flag's concert back in the 80s – when punk as a genre still meant something.

' _What did I do? Is it what I said?_ _Did he stay up all night and finally realise his best friend is, in fact, a shitstorm in humanoid form without the fear of god in him?'_

' _No,'_ Yamato reprimanded himself for the Nth time. ' _That's not Taichi.'_ Taichi would have said something. The both of them were straightforward, barely tactful, kind-of-painfully-honest schmucks. Their respective truths tended to spill out of them against any healthy sense of judgment.

' _What the hell? We are frustrating people!'_

He was stiff, deep to the morrow of his bones.

' _How did I screw up this time? Why? Why do I have to get Taichi upset?'_

Taichi was one miserable bastard.

Miserable and lost.

The only things to have visited his tummy recently were beer and regrets.

He had no bloody idea what to do with his new-found virility. Waking up in the morning hard, sticky, and sweaty with Yamato's name on his lips was something that up until Saturday was strictly categorised under "… What?"

Since then it moved to the folder in his head placed under the "Why?!" section and just like that – his fragile heterosexuality was shattered.

' _And not just my godamn sexuality!'_ This weekend cut five years off his life and a good-sized slice of his sanity!

It'd only been two days, and already Taichi was terrified of falling asleep. Every time he closed his eyes, a little Yama was waiting for him in his dreams. A little, wicked-hot, hazy-eyed Yama who was waiting to be fucked by him. A very slutty little Yama who was begging on his hands and knees – ready, willing and wanting to be mashed into the bed under Taichi's heavy muscles. A sticky, wet, dirty-with-all-kinds little Yama whose hair was such a mess and whose cheeks were so prettily flushed and whose expression was obscenely glazed over after the good dicking Taichi gave him.

At the same time, it was somehow still _his_ Yama, for sure: same long neck, same earth-core deep voice, same impossible-to-look-directly-at eyes, same blonde-headed brill; warhead Yamato.

Some 'em dream-details were particularly nasty. Good-nasty… but Taichi wasn't supposed to be having them in the first place!

He was supposed to fantasise about super-models with humongous jugs he could motorboat. Besides, he normally fancied doing the regular stuff. The Bartholin-squirting stuff. He didn't know he even fancied _butt_ stuff. What a cat- _ass_ -trophic way to find out!

And yet, through some twisted cosmological joke, Taichi was probably the first man in history to be upset about _not_ simply being gay. He could drip saliva all over a glossy Victoria Secret catalogue for hours, but the moment Yamato walked in Taichi was a rainbow fucking unicorn.

Hey! It's not like he didn't give it a go. He tried watching standard gay porn, but it got as much a reaction from him as his high-school history teacher did. A man who was almost a century old at the time, looked like a newspaper, and had as much versatility in his intonation as a slab of something grey.

Taichi tried his luck with the 'twink' category and learnt he fared better – but not _really_. He found a video with a tall, slender blonde who was getting his waxed butt-hole pummelled by two beefcakes at a time and that kinda got Taichi going. At some point, the boy's face overlapped with Yamato's in his mind, and the next thing Taichi knew, he was raining pearl-jam drops and shame all over his keyboard.

As an afterthought, he made a valiant attempt at reminding himself how wrong it was lusting after his mate after taking a skeet at his naked arse. Most of Taichi's waking hours were spent in a marathon of self-persuasion and self-deprecation, repeating the mantra: "I'm gross, I'm repulsive, this can't be happening." Only that his ridiculously stiff hard-on was _clearly_ not seeing eye-to-eye with him on the subject.

He got off the phone with Sora less than an hour ago, relying on his oldest friend for a willing ear, maternal sympathy, and advice without milking him for specifics.

If nothing else, at least now he got the background of her 'Never' confession: apparently, drinking yourself into lesbianism is a trope in her academy of choice. On any other day he'd be thrilled to poke her about this, but right now he was too bogged down with contemplating the deep and meaningful questions of life.

Of all the fetishes, kinks and orientations – why couldn't he have discovered the normal things people discover about themselves after a night of ethanol abuse? Like the fungi between their toes, the taste of asphalt, or some stranger's knickers. And sure, make them another _man's_ knickers, but why, out of all the knickers in the world, did Taichi have to discover Yamato's?!

Why did he have to be turned on by _that_ of all things? And what was he supposed to do about it now?

Taichi couldn't go on ignoring Yamato and he didn't want to either. He damn missed Yamato and his stupid mug! And he missed blurting out all the daft rubbish ping-ponging through his head, and having someone listen to it, no judgment attached. Most of all, though, he didn't want to continue disappointing Yamato – which was exactly what Taichi was doing every single passing minute he spent rotting in his bedroom. Each one of Yamato's phone calls he tuned out and every text he deleted or ignored was another disappointment. He was nothing like what Yamato wanted him to be right now. He was nothing like _he_ wanted to be _._

Taichi had to find a way to be in the same room with Yamato again, even if just by proxy.

Taichi had an idea - though he didn't want to go through with it.

But he was going to.

If he couldn't be himself when he's with Yamato, he wouldn't be there. What's the point? Yamato was more than capable of stripping him bare and opening up whatever was left, so it's not like Taichi could waltz around this chaos. Yamato deserved better than having a 'Half-Arsed Taichi', anyway.

Taichi wasn't going to ruin their hard-earned, blood-brother status by blurting out his notoriously fickle sexual appetite had recently been having a taste for taking his dick out of the closet and straight into Yamato's arse.

For the third time that day, Taichi jacked off into his trash bin. His exercised fist did the job quickly and mechanically. He didn't fantasize about anything – didn't let himself. He stayed detached. He had a need, so he relieved it. That's it. It didn't have to be more fun than that.

After cleaning up stray evidence of his jizz, Taichi picked up his phone again and swept the screen aside with his thumb. The list of Yamato's unanswered texts greeted him, long and angry. It started with 'Why won't you talk to me?', continued with 'Answer me, you professional turd,' and the subtlety of the messages went south from there.

First objective on his agenda was to talk to Yuri and get the When and Where of the party this weekend.

Two minutes into the conversation and already his football mate used that kind of bloody irritating, uneven, chirpy tone. If a Stepford wife who won the lottery had a mass, honey covered orgy with the entire Sanrio cast, glucose syrup, and Barny the dinosaur, Yuri's voice would be their sugar coated offspring.

Of course, having a shot at Yamato _was_ like winning the lottery.

All the while Taichi was telling himself that even if they ended up dating, it wasn't a Catholic wedding and it would do well for Yamato to be with a decent person for a change. Also, when Yamato would be occupied by someone else, Taichi would have enough time to let his homoerotic phase blow over. Their relationship would go back to its legit, smut-free state.

"Hey, Yuri?"

"Aye, captain?"

"Words of caution. Yamato is like a loaded gun. He can be fun to play with, but press his trigger and he'll blow your head off."

"As long as he blows the right head."

In that single second Taichi learnt what homicidal intent was like.

"Which leads me to my second point. You are one of my best players, mate, but Yamato is my blud. Don't do anything that'll make me break your legs before nationals."

He heard a throaty rumble on the other side of the line. "I'll be a perfect gentleman."

' _But Yamato won't.'_

Now – for the tricky part. Taichi stared at Yamato's contact information for what must have been an eon before he pressed the green phone icon and speed-dialled the number.

Not a single ring beeped on the line before, "Fuck me sideways without Vaseline. Thought you dropped off the face of the Earth straight into the sun."

Cold steel underlined Yamato's monotonous intonation – a sure-fire proof he was a heap of seething lava on the inside.

Taichi knew he was the one who put it there. Worse, Taichi knew that beneath his anger Yamato was confused and hurt. And lonely. All because of Taichi.

He felt horrid about it, but he needed Yamato to pipe down and stop. Just… stop. Taichi couldn't deal with having his own feelings projected back at him today. Yamato'd force him to sort this shit – because Taichi listened to him – and Taichi couldn't do it right now. He couldn't. Even when Taichi felt like this more often than he wanted to show, and didn't want to let anyone else know about it, this was _his_ problem. He was aware Yamato knew about it, but Taichi needed him to shut up right now.

A small smile slipped onto Taichi's face anyway. The firestarter on the line was either expecting him to call or their minds were broadcasting on the same frequency. Either option was relieving somehow.

"And leave you here, baby? No, blud. No, if I go anywhere, your scrawny arse goes down with me. How are things on your end?"

Of course, Taichi asked this out of habit. He didn't need an answer. Yamato was _livid_. He was pretty straightforward and mighty specific when he texted Taichi, giving him very precise directions on where he can shove what and how. Bastard was damn creative, too.

Which was all Yamato Ishida language for: "I care. I am worried. I want to know you are all right. Please be all right. You are important to me." Really, just one of Yamato's many roundabout ways to show he cared.

"Stellar. My best friend spontaneously decided to grow a uterus and started bleeding from it like it was the bloody Niagara Falls-"

"Yeah, yeah, I love you too."

"I also lost my butt-plug and I don't remember inside of whom. I am not a happy camper, Taichi. Not a happy camper at all." All right, Yamato made up the plug bit, but it was a fine artistic measure to help him get his point across.

Simultaneously, he was regally pissed off at himself for always saying these kinds of nasty rubbish. Why was he always like this?

"Yamato-"

"And I hope pyrotechnics go off in your arsehole and seal it shut for life."

Why couldn't he just be _nice_?! Why couldn't he vocalize what he _wanted_ to say like a functional human being?!What's his bloody brain damage?!

"Yamato, I'm sorry I went ape-shit on you-"

"Go snort asbestos!" Yamato couldn't help it. He fumed like he was giving birth to a nuclear wipe-out. But he filled the intermediate pause which followed with an impatient, troubled groan that led to softer chords, "… How are you, Taichi? Really?"

He'd get better with talking his heart out. Then Taichi would have it easier too.

Taichi sighed into the line. "I'm fi- I think I'm fine, anyway. Listen, about Saturday – I know I have zero legitimate reasons for ignoring you or acting like I did-"

"No shit."

"Shut up for a moment. I just had an off morning that lasted till ten minutes ago. My brain wasn't co-operating. It's not about something you did or something you can do. It– it's really not about you at all. You're brilliant, mate, and I love you and I'm sorry for the grief. I was just kind of a mess there, you get me?"

"Yeah? Bollocks. You're calling me to make excuses?" Yamato detected it straight away: that tone in Taichi's voice. The one he used to chase away those pesky distractions which were ruining the concentration he needed to keep the whole fake, bubble-gum smiling thing of his going.

"Yes, I do. And because there's a wild, right old knees-up this weekend and we haven't been out for fuck knows how long – you on for it? It's gonna be riotous fun!"

"Don't deflect, Taichi! What's going on with you?!" Curse Taichi and his superior avoidance techniques!

"Yamato…" – Yamato _hated_ that injured sound on him – "please, just give me some breathing space, all right? I really need distance from my life right now." Then Taichi started counting backwards from twenty.

' _Eighteen… seventeen… sixteen… fifteen…'_

There was a short silence on the other side, implying Yamato was chewing over all the suggestions and pretexts he just heard.

' _Four… three…two… one…'_

"The party… Details?"

"Friday, the old warehouse over at Goats' Hill, from eleven PM till you can't walk straight, pass out, get up again, and crawl home on all fours. And don't get bladdered at home before coming 'cause there'll be a sick bar."

"Can I smoke?"

"Yamato-"

"Right. Sorry."

The esoteric description piqued Yamato's interest and his voice moved from sounding like he was doing Taichi a favour by simply existing to carefully curious. "Underground rave? Nice. How'd you get wind of that?"

"What? You think footballers are married to the field? My mates want to celebrate the victory properly and some of them boys know some other boys who throw some sick blowouts. One of those D.I.Y. groups, you get me?"

Yamato produced uncertain vibrations at the back of his throat. "And how do you reckon me and your football crew mix?"

"It's not like we're gonna be the only ones there, you nitwit. Besides…" Taichi took a long breath and talked like his lines were scripted for him, "one of my boys took a fancy to you."

Another pause, longer than the previous one, hung between them.

"What are you on about…?"

Taichi wanted this conversation to be over with. His insides were churning something awful and he felt rank. The lump in his throat was about to be resolved as a spray of puke all over the receiver.

"What can I say? You're irresistible."

"And… that mate of yours knows I have a penis, yes?"

"No, duh!"

"Is he into guys?"

Cue Taichi's turn to become quiet.

' _What does this imply 'bout Yuri?'_

"He is experimenting…" He eventually replied, figuring it was as close to the truth as he was gonna get till Yuri told him otherwise.

' _Twenty… nineteen…'_

On the other side of the conversation, the phone was becoming hot and uncomfortably sweaty against Yamato's ear.

The inflection in that sentence was one he was a bit too familiar with and he cringed. Fucking hell, his cringing had a flavour and it tasted a lot like hot dumpster soy-milk on the palate.

He read somewhere that the majority of men who had sex with other men didn't consider themselves as homosexuals. People were more afraid of the title 'gay' than they were of the actual act – not that committing it inherently made a person gay either.

So far, Yamato's been left with straight-acting benders ogling his barely-of-age tushy while pretending not to, and "straight" blokes with self-convincing propaganda who wanted to thrash him good all night while telling themselves they're pretending he's a woman. Now, where's the sense in that?

And he got it, alright? He got it. Most guys couldn't grow the pair of balls required to come up to another man and tell him he's pretty. It's just not something you do. Especially to someone like Yamato who, as far as they're concerned, was supposedto be tough and potentially set them on a date with an infusion pump for the rest of their lives.

Yamato didn't expect Taichi's 'boy' – as Taichi called his mates – to be any different. In fact, Yamato could build the bloke's psychological portfolio right now.

Even if he was different – even if he was every gay boy's wet dream on a stick – _he was not Taichi_.

Besides, hooking up with members of Camp-Straight could be such a mess.

' _Twelve… eleven … ten…'_

"Experimenting? How very romantic. Do I look like a lab rat to you? Mate, I don't need this aggro!"

"Come on, you tosser! You _know_ it's not like that! And I'm not asking you to exchange vows before the pews. Just come and have some fun with your uber-awesome best friend at the fiercest gig you could possibly be at. If you happen to hook up with him…"

Taichi couldn't bring himself to complete the sentence. _'You are a coward, Taichi Yagami.'_ The usually conflicting voices of his inner monologue agreed on a truce and were instead yelling at _him_ and demanding he stopped advertising for Yuri.

"What about Sora?"

"She won't come 'cause she has a girl-night out with her uni friends."

' _Five… four…'_

Yamato swept aside a few long, yellow hairs, wet from sweat, which got tangled in his eyelashes. "I don't know. I'm several leagues further up Darwin's curve compared to most of your mates."

"I get where you're coming from-"

' _No, Taichi, you don't. You really don't. You don't_ know _how I feel. You don't know what you mean to me.'_

"-but it's gonna be a real banger! We've been cooped up indoors since the end of spring semester."

"Taichi-"

"This one's a really phenomenal guy, I promise. And I think he's totally your type."

"Taichi-"

"We are going to nationals, for Pete's sake! It's huge for me and I want you to be a part of it. I want to be with you. I want you to be with me."

"Ta-

"And… I could really use the distraction right now. It won't be the same without you…"

' _Zero.'_

Yamato's deep intake resounded through the rasping in the speaker.

"Please…?"

Yamato couldn't refuse him; not when Taichi was so gentle. Not like this.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: The City in Shambles but Still It Keeps Glow – Sex and Violence

Unless he was the one on stage, Yamato had a pretty nihilistic approach to events and places where people gathered in their mentally deficient masses. Maybe it's an old habit: when too many people are in one spot it becomes remarkably easy to bomb the place and off them all at once. If Digimons invaded now, any location with a high number of people would become a liability.

Regardless… there was something about being part of the crowd which made him feel bloody _off_. Like he was trapped in a cage made of flesh. Worse – like he wasn't really there; like he didn't exist at all.

It's not that he didn't enjoy losing himself between the mashing motions of sweltering bodies on occasion, but that was a problem in on its own. The higher he got, the deeper he wanted to fall.

Combinations of the secretive darkness, the heat, and the overtaking blazes of musical instruments pulsing with rhythm left nothing in him but raw instinct. It rewired his neurons into an ecstatic sea of disorder and forced the receptors strewn along his body to sing with excitement.

When it happened, everything was enhanced. Colours were absurdly bright, the world was always shining, and he had all the will to lose control. Sometimes, he'd smoke a tube of green alone before coming to see if he'd get a glimpse of the other side of reality.

Chances of him doing something outstandingly stupid also grew exponentially. So, when all those components fused into a soup of stimuli, like they would tonight, he had every justification to expect the unexpected to hit him on the head _._

But not necessarily in any way he'd appreciate come yet another wasted, crashed morning.

When it would come – and it would because it always had – everything from the previous night would turn into yet another painful exercise in futility and fluorescent memories.

Six or seven clusters of cement & plaster residential blocks away, Taichi made his way towards Yamato's building, hands in front pockets and slouched.

Since he woke up, he sported an obnoxious headache that refused to be banished – no matter how many painkillers he chewed on or how many hours he spent at the gym. As a matter of fact, it became worse, pushing him to the point where he lost his appetite and snapped at Hikari _twice._

This was the mean mix of anxiety and guilt and he knew that bloody well. The same way he knew Yamato wasn't going to enjoy himself and only agreed to come along because Taichi emotionally extorted him into it.

Taichi was getting rather chummy with this new concept he had of self-hatred. He wasn't any better than that spunk-licker, Big-Boss company manager who used Yamato's mouth as a fashion accessory for his dick while going in and out of it every other month. It was carved for Big-Boss' pleasure and was left loose and open – all so that blonder-than-blonde could land some lousy contract for his band mates.

Self-hatred? For being such a piss-poor coward who can't even face Yamato with some measly measure of self-respect. He deserved it.

What Taichi didn't deserve was how devoted Yamato was to him.

When he reached the patio of the yob's home, Yamato was already waiting for him. His silhouette was illuminated by the orange light cascading from the lamp near the house's number plaque. The one proudly announcing to the entire street that _this_ ugly slice of boxy architecture was the twenty-third in a row of identically tasteless buildings.

Yamato was nothing of the sort. Yamato could _kill_ someone with the way he looked. Straight up give an innocent bystander a heart-attack. He was A++, top-shelf, looked like a million gigawatts, leg cocked just so.

His threadbare, sleeveless tank earned its rips and exposed his sharp collarbones. A generous portion of his milky torso's sides wasn't neglected either and were on full exhibition – going all the way up from his toned hips to the defined ridges of his rib cage. Really not hiding anything, that slinky thing was. A small, silver ring was adjusted on its appropriate finger whose nail Yamato was chewing off.

Only he can pull off throwing on himself something so simple, slouch there with his hand in his pocket like nothing can touch him, and make it look so sophisticated.

Taichi didn't hate it. Not a single thing.

He didn't realise how much he missed him. He also didn't realise he was becoming _very_ aware of just how much a _damn fine_ specimen of humankind Yamato was. What kind of diet and workout regimes did he have to keep on looking like _that_?

What Taichi did realise was that he was in deep shit. He couldn't believe his best friend was such a pretty person with such a pretty–

Real-life, hot-beyond-reason Yamato was going to make Taichi's existence a living hell with those eyes, that hair, the deep baritone, that clever way he talked, and those long, _long_ legs of his that went on for kilometres without ending – until they did, with that tight–

For a few seconds too many, Taichi gawked at Yamato like a downright mental case. The latter sashayed his way with an artful grin which informed Taichi Yamato was happy to see him, still angry, and well on his way to becoming so shitfaced he'd have to hold on to grass to keep himself from falling off the ground.

While Taichi should have looked away, he instead took in what he was treated with. Yamato's cold shoulders were an ocean of freckles since summer began, and those were slathering them with youthful appeal. The hem of his top waved about with each of his moves, revealing pelvic bones which protruded over low-riding jeans that sensually hugged his legs. For any normal person these would have resulted in cut-off circulation, and if they were any lower Taichi would have seen his pubes. _'Shit! Shit! Shit!'_ Yamato had one _tight_ , little ass!

Taichi's awareness of the heated ache settling in his abdomen and the tingle at the back of his neck increased like _that_. The fuck was wrong with him? In the proverbial sense, his internal networking went utterly mental and shat itself. He forced the dank air down his windpipe only for it to be traded for carbon dioxide far too soon. Taichi had no idea how to survive the night.

Seeing him now, with so many jutting bones, to Taichi Yamato looked so thin; a willowy frame with scrawny wrists and almost transparent skin stretched over them. Under those, thin branches of purple veins showed a bit too well.

But that's bullshit. Truth is, Yamato was the embodiment of barbed wire – dangerous, biting, wrought steel. Maybe he was tall and thin, but he was _heavy_. Packed with iron muscles beneath it all, strong and defiant till the end, no matter how vulnerable his position was.

He used to test the tenacity of his knuckles by punching them into walls to break micro-fractions into the bones of his fists and make them denser. It was stupid, yeah, but…Still Badass. Also, Yamato may not have had the mentality for gyms, but he got himself his own dumbbells and a barbell and did almost as many reps as Taichi. When he deadlifted, Yamato was 1.5 times his body-weight! He had finely refined abs that were nice to look at and his pecs had the right proportions. Between the two of them, Yamato was also the better swimmer. That is sick!

When they were eighteen, during the second year of their high school imprisonment, Taichi wasn't sure if he wanted to apply for aerodynamics studies. Mostly, because the majority of the biped puss balloons he was forced to call teachers had told him his grades were so shit he had no academic future. On that day, Yamato grabbed him, rolled a fist, and bit his own lip till it chafed off the skin.

Before Taichi's survival instincts clocked that pretty face of his – _"Do it!"_ Yamato barked at him. The blood trickling from his lips made him look like he's wearing rouge. _"Show me how strong you really are and then get off your fat arse and show it to the anal cunts who tell you otherwise!"_ His fist uncurled.

At that moment, Taichi realised, yet again, how much that person meant to him. How much he needed him and wouldn't let him go. Even disagreeing, it was the strength of Yamato's convictions that made Taichi a better leader. And it was such a _Yama_ thing to do! Taichi wiped the grin off his face and almost fell on Yamato.

At _this_ moment, Taichi realised reminiscing about that gave him a butterfly.

Yamato took his time raking his eyes up Taichi's body and down Taichi's body. And up Taichi's body and down Taichi's body. Taichi looked sogood he was beyond fit! He was the hottest thing ever! Just being in his general vicinity gave Yamato heart palpitations and a boner.

Yamato's muscle-dreamboat wore a devastatingly tight, black version of that blasted jersey from last Friday and kind of had a mysterious-but-messy-sexy way about him. Not to mention those skinny jeans that packed him damn fine! Was Taichi's bum always this perfectly round?!

Jesus, the only thing Yamato fancied right now was to trip over and fall, arse first, on Taichi's dick. What he didn't want to do was mingle with complete and utter strangers who smelt like football rubber. He didn't want to be around anyone he didn't already have on his contact list.

But Taichi asked. Adamantly so. Making Yamato someone else's responsibility for a change. So, Yamato figured he'd at least have fun with whatever balljob he was being set up with – for tonight – and if he was going to do something, he may as well do it right. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh?

Taichi was all winning smiles since he showed his face on Yamato's doorstop, but Yamato knew how to differentiate his real smile from a cheap fake. Even now, when he was right beside him, the distance between them was a canyon hundreds of kilometres wide.

So, tonight, if Taichi asks, Yamato would spread his knees and let Taichi's entire team run a train on him.

Whatever it took – as long as it kept Taichi happy and talking with him.

Yamato didn't notice they'd reached their checkpoint until the ear-splitting tech-buzz of an intercom grated his nerves a bit further.

It was agreed between the two footballers Taichi and Yamato would pick Yuri up along the way, since the bloody _mansion_ he lived in was on the same route they were taking to the party.

This plan would also give Yamato and Yuri a better chance of getting _acquainted_ before a litre of alcohol and pumping music played at illegal decibels would render the option obsolete. Paraphrasing – it was to let Yamato see first-hand if the product lived up to Taichi's previews.

Throwing a looksee at the glass-art décor and Dutch lace curtains, from where Yamato stood, that bloke had some impressive jewel box.

' _Seriously, what does he have? Diamond-studded butt cheeks or something?'_

If anything, this monolithic lap of luxury got Yamato even more antagonistic to the entire deal. Like he was being pimped to some eighty year old shit-stabber who wiped his wrinkly crack clean with freshly printed bills.

When the front door cracked open, a warm pool of light spilled into the walkway and into the petunia patches which flanked it. Their level of organisation wouldn't shame a martial roll call. That riled Yamato right up. He wanted to stomp them into a cytoplasmic salad. However, his crankiness wasn't the flowers' fault.

The yellow faded into black again as Yuri exchanged a few last words with a disembodied feminine voice before marching their way, looking all smart in his fitted shirt and trousers.

Yamato stole a sidelong glance to the bloke's crotch. Yup, he remembered him a'right: scored an impressive goal halfway across the field once.

Sure, Yamato fancied believing he could tell Taichi's team mates apart by their bulges. Honestly – they were all yummy looking. It was such a damn shame the men attached to them were often all soft as pig shit and twice as thick. He had to give it to them, though – there was definitely something to footballers. They could go for ninety minutes straight, played around with balls, and knew eleven different positions from the get go.

Yuri and Taichi leaned in for one of those 'Manly Hugs'. That's when the two parties half high-five and half grip each other's fist in one hand while giving two, light smacks on the other person's back. Then, they disband the whole structure after about half a second. God forbid someone would accidentally draw the conclusion either one of the two relishes in rubbing up against other men.

Yamato almost imploded at the hypocrisy. One of the people present clung to him on an almost daily basis while the other was trying to get into his pants! Or, did he miss some memo saying it was 'okay to be gay' just for him? If so – it was both flattering and inspired his inner serial killer.

' _Since when do I let Taichi drag me into the conundrums he calls plans? What's with this bullshit? That little piece of –UNGODLY SEXINESS… that son of a – HOTTIE MC-HOT-HOT so hot I WANT TO DRINK HIS BATH WATER.'_

Yuri turned to shake Yamato's hand, flashing an open-mouthed smile which made Yamato wonder how on earth the city's electrical grid didn't spike to overdrive and crash. Yuri's surveying gaze dropped to the zip on Yamato's crotch, approving. Yamato was fully aware how _he_ was being the pure and utter hypocrite now, but – ' _ew!'_

But he took the handshake, squeezing it with an aim to hurt while trying to fight off his building resentment. Simultaneously, he forcedhimself into a more social persona.

' _No flash photography, please. Buckle up and keep your hands to yourself for the entire ride – or else the good folks down at the morgue will have to patch you up from baby pictures and dental records.'_

Only he was rubbish at false pretences so, basically, Yamato was the same sad bastard but the chances of the evening to end with amputees were dramatically reduced.

For the most part, the two football acers made a lovely company for each other, talking about this and that and balls. About everything and nothing.

Yamato was plenty content with adding his own two bits to the conversation – when the two shut up long enough for him to squeeze in a word. That, and follow the visible muscle line under Taichi's tight shirt all the way down to what must be an impeccably firm Gluteus Maximus. It subtly showed under his jeans when he walked.

By the time the urban scenery was traded for the savage growth of the city's hillside outskirts, all three were armed with phone lights. Gravel and broken glass crunched under their heavy footwear and toes almost broke on rocks while they attempted to march through the black wilderness unhindered.

Albeit begrudgingly, Yamato was forced to admit Yuri wasn't half bad – neither as a person nor as someone's potential love interest. Not Yamato's, but someone's.

He seemed to possess the functional to achieve a bit more out of himself other than kicking balls and breathing at the same time – which was the intellectual pinnacle for the majority of footballers Yamato knew.

He was also not too hard on the eye. That was enough for Yamato to not suffer too much in his presence.

Already, the air was loaded with an overbearingly sweet and invasive smell; a hookah burning with apple-flavoured tobacco. In weird contrast, it was paired with the deep, throbbing bass line of heavy techno which reverberated through their forms and synchronized with their pulses. A remix which constituted a genetic cross-product between The Prodigy's beat, Die Antwood's weirdness, and Little Big's poverty.

They made it past the last dune. There, the hollow of the land hit them with the rollicking, but cold, neon lights slanting through the cracks of barred windows. Outdated squares of glass and nails garnishing a metal-panelled warehouse whose walls shook with the force unfurling inside.

The grass was sprinkled with people who were either already arse over tits from substance abuse or were racing full speed ahead on the highway leading there.

Indeed, at least one visible group circled the tall, glass smoking instrument. One of its participants was in the process of changing coals inside the vortex bowl before restoring its session. Once again, they would pass the hose from one member to another and make the embers glow red in the night.

With this level of decadence in the atmosphere, what Yamato really wanted right now was to jump the molly, but he doubted these clean killjoys had any. _'Fuck'_ he doubted they used cough syrup during flu season.

Taichi _did_ warn him about it: sports jockeys meant no chemical fun – and that was a damn shame. Yamato sure could have used his quota today. A rave without happy pills was about as useful as drinking while pissing and equally awkward.

On the other hand, he could drink his fill. Then again, he could have mixed both. It would have been a bad choice… but bad choices make good stories.

Whatever the case, he was going to get fucked out of his mind tonight. This will be utter carnage! He'll get a fish bowl the size of the national aquarium and use it as a wine glass, shot glass, lobo glass, and a flask combined until his liver needed crutches and his moral compass became a Russian roulette.

When the heavy, industrial door slid aside, it unleashed discordant and harsh notes of a blasting, electronic music that split ear-drums left and right. It was all about the obscure ambiance of a nowhere in its essence.

The insides of the warehouse were saturated with youthful people, with sweat and the glitter dust which clung to it, with the musk of old things that got dunked in stale booze, with the smog of cigarettes and much less innocent materials. With sex-on-clothes. With cheap perfumes and with someone's unquenchable loneliness.

Epileptic lamps flashed the scene black and brilliant colour.

Yamato ingested everything the place had to offer.

This was the realm of night, where nameless people wander into each other's lives and walk back out again without noticing the strangers passing through. Within these few hours alone, of absolute degeneration, they're allowed to meet and are trying to connect; fill each other with meaning in dirty toilet stalls.

Then it all comes to an end and nobody cares.

A paradigm of solitariness.

" **I love myself, I want you to love me…"**

One foot in and already Yamato was cutting a line towards the bar while developing an increasing lack of distaste towards the DJ'S taste, who pumped it up to the Genitorturers' 'I Touch Myself'.

 **** **"…when I feel down, I want you above me…"**

Double shots of Arak with lemon grass on rocks were calling his name – NO! – _singing it_ and Yamato swore they used David Bowie's vocals.

He ordered seven of them and made sure he got himself properly sloshed before agreeing to let go of the improvised, wooden bar-counter. He toasted the organisers of the evening for this timbered feat they threw together out of a stolen construction plank and three crates.

To his left, Taichi nursed his usual whisky that no party would be complete without. With one stool between them stood Yuri, a man of a humbler taste, who satisfied himself with a pint of whatever piss the local brewery cooked.

Every so often, both waved or shook hands with blokes of similarly athletic builds, and with the occasional, pretty lass hanging from one of their shoulders – all of whom were the type Taichi usually attracted. Skirts so short, if they'd bend over – it will be snatch-galore!

"… **I'll search myself, I want you to find me** **  
** **Forget myself, I want you to remind me"** **  
**

From the corner of his eye, Yamato caught Yuri giving him a nice, long once-over – no doubt using the brewsky as liquid courage before asking him to dance while gauging for the perfect timing to lay down the invitation.

' _Beer-goggles: the patent of the millennium_. _'_

Yamato was not in the appropriate mind set to allow Yuri the dubious pleasure just yet – meaning he still saw straight and hasn't entered his fuck-giving bankruptcy stage. He guzzled another shot while examining the fine establishment with the less than fine cretins in it.

Expectedly enough, half of them were getting their ends away in the bogs or snogging in the corners. Someone took body shot. At least one person was huddled on the floor in the foetal position while spooning the toilet.

There was that one bloke – the one every such event cultivates: So gagging for it it's bloody embarrassing, creeping from one drunken pussy to another, delivering moronic lines and still not getting any.

' _Go back under your bridge, troll.'_

No amount of booze can make that hideous mug of a dog's dinner presentable to the outside world.The only way that guy was going to get laid was if he crawled up a chicken's butt-hole and waited.

Yamato had a good laugh at his expense and ignored Taichi when he asked what the fuck Yamato was doing.

" **I don't want anybody else…"** **  
**  
Another shot and Yamato was feeling it.

Another – he was warm and slackened and inclined.

Downed whatever was still available – he moved next to Yuri with one of his best smiles.

He confiscated Yuri's pint while letting their fingers meet, finished it in a single gulp, and pulled the footballer into the hot pit of bare torsos and bouncing silhouettes.

On the way in, he spared Taichi one last look. The accelerated operations of interchanging lights and shades made fool-proof distinction impossible, but Yamato thought he saw an emotion on Taichi he didn't want to see.

"… **when I think about you, I touch myself…"**

They merged into the jittering crowd and started their descent into temptation. Not once did Yamato leave Taichi's field of view. With that hair and eyes no one else had, it was too easy to find him, and all Taichi could do was sit with his hands under his arse, observe, and eat himself alive.

Fuck, fuck, fuck Yamato! _**'You'**_ bimbo!

"… **I don't want anybody else, I touch myself…"**

The cybernetic melody moved through Yamato, penetrating him from all entries, consuming him, pulsing inside him, and claiming him for its own.

His hands – the hands above his head – now ran down to touch his body.

Taichi couldn't stop staring at the roll of Yamato's hips. It was the pendulum hypnotising him into submission.

" **You close your eyes and see me before you…"**

He wasn't the only one. People frothed at their mouths just looking at Yamato.

Everyone, all raging hormones, waited, queuing to dance with the loose and hot blonde beauty, and enjoy themselves with something pretty.

 **** **"…Think you would die if I were to ignore you…"**

Two, masculine bodies sandwiched him – Yuri and someone Taichi thought was familiar but couldn't distinct in the cacophony.

They snuck touches here and there while Yamato continued smiling like the sexual creature he was. Smiling… Playing along with the attention he was receiving and the mad rush he got from it, bumping ever so slightly to one man's crotch or angling his form into the other's arms… Running his hands through his hair and body… Knowing exactly what he was doing to their libido. Knowing it looked like the foreplay for what they actually wanted to do to him.

By blended Akashi shot no. 4, the room span, twisted, morphed around Taichi, dizzying.

"… **A fool could see just how much you adore me…"**

Normally, Yamato wasn't someone who'd put his sexuality on display. Normally. **  
**

' _What's wrong with him? What's wrong with me?_ _ **What's wrong with us?**_ _'_

Taichi's next, desperate chugging had begun slowing his reaction time.

"… **get down on your knees and do anything for me…"**

When Taichi saw him again, Yamato already had his small mouth plenty occupied. It moved to and fro, ravaged by Yuri's rough tongue on one end, then sucked and abused on the other end – by that other bloke Taichi now recognized as Ryo, his Sweeper on the team. Both had their hands exploring Yamato's exquisite figure _very_ animatedly.

Yamato tugged at Yuri's belt, lighting his best flirtatious eyes, drawing them together. His fingers brushed along Yuri's zip and over the engorged bump beneath it. His available hand he wrapped over Ryo's neck, and pulled him into another lip session.

" **I don't want anybody else…"**

He looked so good and lush, Taichi was nauseous.

Yamato moved like he was used to it, touched like he was used to it. He knew this dance a bit too well.

With an emotionally stunted sense of shame, Yamato didn't have any rudimentary sense for fidelity or decency. After Ryo was done with him, another person swooped into the vacancy – and then another and another and another in rotation. Yamato was yielding and pliable and compliantly swapped saliva with whoever held on to him. The masses of unknown faces in the shadows were allowed to exploit him in every way they saw fit, indiscriminate of gender or sex.

He was nothing more than a pair of legs and the hole between them.

This scene was depraved. Not so much for what Yamato was doing, but for how he was doing it. He looked so pleased Taichi could kill him.

Parallel to that line of thought, was the spark of another one. Nasty and wrong – just right. Taichi couldn't stop thinking about the way Yamato looked, about the way he smelt, or about the way he moved. He's been thinking about this stuff for a week. Yamato was Taichi's best friend, blud, and a human being, but he was also a sex object. So maybe Taichi should do it too? Come up behind Yamato, get them closer, touch him, adore him, smooch the living daylight out of him, and maybe take him on a ride at the other side. It's not like Yamato can tell who he's with anyhow. Only unlike everyone else, Taichi wouldn't let him go. He would never let him go.

Yamato was a real piece of work. It took practise to be as fucked up as he was, but, clearly, Yamato rehearsed a lot.

"… **when I think about you, I touch myself…"**

Dampness emerged as fermented sweat under Taichi's hair-line, dripping irritating beads down his brow as he refused yet another, scantily-clad girl who tried coercing him to the dance floor with sugared pouts of molasses and lurid promises.

Few ideas in existence tempted him more right now than hearing the satisfying crack of necks fracturing under his hands when he'd tear apart the throats of anyone who touched Yamato. When he'd be done, Taichi'd use that duff flap of rotting skin to wipe his arse after he'd take a shit all over their remains.

Afterwards, he wanted to cry till no sounds come out.

A couple more shots headed his throat's way and everything was blurring into a mess.

Something freezing slid into the space between his thighs and continued slipping till it rolled over the round ridge of the stool he occupied.

Taichi stared at the melting ice cube on the floor. It was a good few seconds before he realised it dropped from his glass because his fist was shaking like a mad man's with advanced stages of Parkinson disease.

Within this encapsulated fraction of time, Taichi hated Yamato so much.

At the same time, he felt the absolute opposite and fantasised about tearing off that rent-boy outfit Yamato's wearing with his teeth.

Not at any point during this chaotic week, or at all, did Taichi ask himself what he _wanted_ from Yamato. Of course they were best friends and Taichi wanted that to be forever. He didn't care how cheesy or childish it sounded, that's what he wanted.

He also wanted Yamato's toned arms to wrap around his neck while Taichi pounded his arse open. So, best friends with benefits? Cute, but depending on that word combo as his Hail Mary and narrowing his emotional typhoon to that single title, would be ignoring reality.

So, what was it? Did he want to protect him – and himself by extension – or did he want to _own_ him? Is this what obsession means? And say he'd find some definitive answer, what'd he do with it anyway?

Taichi needed to make sense of himself something awful. He also needed to look away from the promiscuous exhibition Yamato was – but he couldn't.

Karma was a vindictive bitch. Everything going on was entirely his fault. Also, since someone had to make sure Yamato didn't do anything Taichi did _not_ want to explain to a paramedic, he's going to sit all the way through this fine-tuned hell. He'd watch every single moment of this fucked up spectacle of debauchery.

" **I don't want anybody else, I touch myself…"**

All along, Yamato pretended each of these blokes was Taichi.

He imagined it was Taichi wanting him, Taichi embracing him, Taichi touching his arse, Taichi rubbing against his crotch, Taichi pulling back the top of his shirt to kiss his back, once, with a dissonant lightness. It was Taichi grabbing Yamato's wrist and shepherding Yamato's hand to a straining front inside unbuttoned trousers. Taichi is so pretty.

With this achieved, Yamato could get into it. Get frisky. So what if it's a lie?

All he wanted was hands on his body.

Taichi's rough hands. On him. In him.

There were so many hands.

All the while, in his head, it was Taichi who wanted to whip out a Durex, bend him down, and screw him over a table.

" **I'm the one who makes you come running…"**

From where Taichi sat, Yamato was becoming lost to him.

He thought seeing Yamato with other people would straighten him up. In practice, the result was him feeling like the magnificent butt of a satire show's joke and fucking terrified.

It wasn't that he didn't want anyone else to touch Yamato or that he wanted to possess Yamato at least as much as Yamato possessed him. It wasn't about lust. It went straight into Taichi's chest and hurt. Real, physical pain. Is this what the dictionary has under 'heartbreak'?

Strange. Taichi felt like he's trying to tear his way out of his own skin.

The world that's been theirs alone – he didn't want to share it with anyone.

" **Get you coming all the time…"**

Occasionally, Yamato stole glances at him. Always, he searched for the shock of wild hair which fitted an unruly personality and had much in common with barbershop explosions. Yamato was checking to see if Taichi was still amongst the conscious – or at least the living.

Those did not go unnoticed by their subject. For Taichi, though, it looked like Yamato was rubbing in his face all the things he was missing while sitting here, on this hard piece of rotten wood that flattened his arse into a pancake like a twat. Like Yamato was telling him _'don't you want a piece of that?'_ with a smug pull of lips over those sharp canines of his, and hooded, half lidded eyes.

 **"When I'm around, you're always begging…"**

Pain swelled inside Taichi's ribs. Any moment now his chest would crumple like a spoilt, dried out cake.

Since he was running out of whisky money, he compromised for another, bottom-shelf shot of what was a glass of benzene by any other name. A choo-choo train of clear liquids has been blazing down his throat and searing him from the inside.

" **I wanna make you mine"**

Tunes washed the scene, were gone, came back, replacing each other in quick succession until the former song faded and re-emerged as The Jezebels' 'Pleasure Drive'.

Yamato, all feline grace, stalked over to refuel on his toxins.

" **I got a 66 baby**

 **And I'm born to rock"**

He leaned over the pathetic ingenuity which was the bar's counter and ordered another shot with a side of tap water. He needed to keep that hydration flowing if he intended to keep his legs moving.

A bartender with a bright, neon pink Mohawk who could pass too easily as an angsty, radioactive porcupine, leaned right back towards him. Elbows greeting his in the middle, she scanned Yamato with no platonic intentions whatsoever.

Satisfied with her find, she quirked her cherry-dark lips and spoke with a tang of a coquettish accent that pecked so much saccharine, Taichi guessed she sucked on marshmallow peeps instead of her mum's tities when she was born. ' _Fucking hell,'_ he could hear her 'gaina juices squelching up to here.

"You give us a kiss, luv, and I won't tell m'e boss this one here's a gift from him."

Yamato mimicked her posture, hummed some form of consent and sealed the gap between them.

" **I got a one track mind**

 **just to get me off"**

Truth – kissing was one place where Yamato became a bit weird with what came mighty close to being a dumb ideal. Most multicellular animals had some form of sex or another, so spreading someone's legs, funding a lube company, and being an average mammal was nothing.

But there was no room for anything soft.

He was pretty disillusioned with the world. He was also way too old to buy the hourly caricature they tried selling him as a love-substitute. Lip mashing wasn't included in his antics whatsoever, and if someone tried gentle caresses with him – he'd rip that person's fingers off with plyers, one by one.

He _was_ kissed sometimes, but – ' _haha' –_ who the hell said permission was involved?

Whenever he did deign parting his lips for someone, he made it as sexual as possible; less personal as possible. That was snogging, though – not kissing.

Funny and almost bloody sad considering his current conduct, but he didn't want anyone to even _start_ thinking they were on anything remotely close to an intimate plain with him.

Especially on those inconsequential nights he used to spend with people whose names he forgot.

The only thing he cared about back then was the mechanical and mindless act of shoving organs into other organs, but he was pleased to a pulp those encounters thinned down. The emptiness in the morning was way worse when it was combined with the bodily shame of a bad hangover.

" **I got a 66 baby**

 **I don't give a fuck…"**

So Yamato slipped his tongue into her oral air-duct, moving like he was about to swallow her face and she took it all the more willingly. When they parted, he bit her lower lip hard enough to make it bleed and cleaned her taste off his tongue with the water he ordered. Then he shoved the empty glass back to her across the bar.

"Give me something that'll murder me."

"Cheers…" she mumbled, enamoured.

"… **Just gimme me one more number**

 **and a little luck…"**

This was happening in front of Taichi and ' _get your fucking tongue out of her fucking throat,'_ was the single intelligent thought he was able to form straight.

A week ago, he would have found it hilarious –tasteless, but hilarious – and they would have laughed it off.

Tonight, it was all the disgust and none of the fun.

" **The pleasure drive"**

The bartender gave Yamato three shots for his diligent service: two Green Fairys and something else squeezed between them, pitch black like a less gooey, though equally flammable, form of tar. A single, flaming sugar cube was melting away inside each glass, turning the drinks opaque and milky to look at.

Yamato inspected the middle piece like it was about to explode in his face – or contain Roofies – and the bartender giggled with that lollipop flavoured voice of hers.

"Black Absinthe," she explained, "The real, eighty-nine percent, cold-mix. So synthetic, it's plastic. I say you scribble your address on that pretty hand of yours, luv. For the taxi driver. You won't know your name for a month with how this will treat ya – let alone anything else." She threw him a pen and left to attend the next customer.

" **I got a 66 baby**

 **And I'm bored to tears…"**

Yamato turned to inspect Taichi and received the reflection of his own expression on a tan skin and a pair of high cheek bones as a reply. It was a look that slid from suspicion to 'FUCK YEAH!' faster than the gap between a laxative overdose and a shit break.

"Yeah, go on then."

He passed Taichi one of the green shots and they slugged them straight back, together. Not a second after relinquishing the last drop, Yamato chased it with half of the black liquid. The second half he shoved over to his blud, who gulped it down with fear reserved for dragons and final exams.

Yamato had no idea what kind of grimace he was making because he couldn't feel his face – only the Absinthe monkeys playing a drum solo on his cortex, which was gonna suffer some form of a long-term, crucial effect. But it was probably mighty similar to the semi-epileptic seizure Taichi displayed and mixed with regurgitating noises.

" **I got a one track mind**

 **just to get undressed…"**

Yamato plummeted to the stool next to Taichi and both landed their heads against the first, horizontal object in the vicinity with a dull thud. That happened to be the bar's unvarnished, filthy plank – all bruised by black circles of cigarette burns.

They had to sit it out for a good few minutes, fogging the hardwood with ethanol-stricken breaths along with the remnants of their dignity – and safely moving into the territory of being so marvellously palatic they could see sounds.

" **I got a 66 baby …**

 **And I like your style…"**

Yamato was the first to break that position. For a second, his head bounced from side to side like he wasn't sure what he was searching for. He clutched Taichi's shoulder much firmer than he would have had, had his liver not been shrivelling into a stew or had his brain not been leaking out of his ears.

"… **Just gimme me one more number…"**

What a terrific neck Taichi had; shamelessly asking Yamato to tickle it.

"Taichi," he almost whispered, getting closer, slurring, barely audible over the music. "Dance with me."

Taichi still heard him. _'Damn that voice of yours, Yama. This is so unfair, you cheater. Don't go around using it on unsuspecting victims. It's completely immoral. IMMORAL. You mess me up.'_

This gurgling noise bubbled out of Taichi's pipes, and it was a bit too weird for either one of them to explain.

"Wouldn't your _boyfriends_ miss your arse something awful?" Taichi made a point of emphasising the plural form like it was somehow supposed to be an insult and smirked.

Yamato had the smell of other people, his lips were heavy and swollen and open. A band of dark haze underscored his irises. It drove Taichi off the walls.

He felt like taking all the frustrations he had piled up out on someone, and had eighty-nine percent of what was effectively motor oil, or whatever fuck, in his blood to help him through.

If Yamato caught on to the sting at all, he didn't bother showing it. Instead, he conjured an intoxicated smirk of his own and leaned in closer till his jaw almost clashed into Taichi. Lips parted – just a bit too much, really – when they breathed down Taichi's neck, "but I want _you_ , Taichi." His hand found Taichi's under the table.

' _Shit.'_

"I really, _really_ want you…"

' _ **Holy shit'**_

How was Taichi supposed to react? "I don't _do_ dancing, 'mato. B'sides," he hiccupped, "you seemed fine on your own. Flaunting y'er arse in everyone's faces –You're hot a commodity." Taichi gremmed the ball of phlegm, which pooled in his throat, on the floor. "Haven't you been fucked to the bones, yet? Seems to me like between two horny guys is your natural place."

"What do you want me to say? I have as many morals as you have standards." Yamato elbowed Taichi hard in the ribs, knocking the wind out of him and forcing spit out of his maw. "And that's for giving me attitude."

Taichi winced and was on his feet in instants, fistfuls of Yamato's collar clutched in his hands, throttling Yamato from the neck up, and ready for retribution.

To himself, he admitted a tiny part in him took a lot of pleasure in seeing Yamato writhe under his control; loved having this power over him. _'If you can't let it be, might as well make it bleed.'_ Taichi had a part that loved being a little bit cruel, but only to Yamato. It was the same part which wanted Yamato closer. Closer. Closer, so Taichi could whisper dirty promises into his ear.

Yamato, on the other hand, was a mood all on his own. He situated both his hands on top of Taichi's. "Oh, don't sulk! You had that one coming. Despite what you want to think about me, I am not a public toilet. Besides-" His grin widened wolfishly, "my throat became sore from begging to be fucked harder, so I decided to take a break."

He tipped his head, pretending to be adding numbers into a sum. "Or… are you just sore 'cause you want what they do, Taichi?" His lilting voice dropped a few tones into a stupefied, sensuous danger zone which coiled around Taichi's spine. "Me on my knees?... You slamming your dick in my mouth?... Banging me into the wall?...Taichi?"

Yamato leaned in over the bridge of their hands, the disgusting smell of anise heavy on his breath.

"Jealous?"

' _ **Yes'**_

"No! _"_

' _ **Lie'**_

Taichi's fists unclenched and Yamato removed his fingers from the cotton. "Dance with me, Taichi. You owe me for dragging me to the other side of nowhere to _entertain_ your mates."

The tiny accusation and the sadness which dyed his voice, the last remnants of Yamato's sobriety, amplified every single, unpleasant sensation Taichi experienced here. To make things worse – it was boosted up by all the booze in his bloodstream. Right till he _really_ felt proportionally shit to the piece of crap he was.

Yamato giggled, like he was telling Taichi to forget all about it, and tugged at Taichi's sleeve. "Come here, Taichi."

"But Yama… dancing…" Taichi's head was unscrewed from his shoulders with a Green Fairy screwdriver. Otherwise, his last resistance may have not been so futile. Now, Yamato could do whatever he wanted with him. Taichi would fall into his arms.

He did notice, however, how being so far deep into intoxication made Yamato really enjoy calling him all the time. Calling "Taichi" all the time. Taichi liked it when Yamato called him. Called "Taichi". When he was teasing Taichi with his own name – low on Taichi's neck. When he said "Taichi". Yamato had a way to say "Taichi" Taichi couldn't even describe. He didn't use that tone unless it was for "Taichi". Taichi couldn't figure it out, but he always liked it. No one else had "Taichi" like that.

"You'll figure it out." Yamato giggled again, almost cutely, still understanding what Taichi couldn't say, and still so aroused and so arousing when he came a bit closer. "You can be stardust!"

"… **I'll make you mine"**

The way Yamato acted all night… The screwed up part in his brain, running high on a neurochemical cocktail of the wrong kind, was having him tonight.

Positively manic, Yamato was good on his way to the well-worn track of self-detonation and he didn't do much to restrain himself either. He really did put the 'fun' in 'dysfunctional'. When he hit this stage, he was a force of nature – unpredictable, destructive, and magnetic.

And he shouldn't be left alone.

So Taichi tossed one last shot to the back of his throat and allowed himself to be pulled through the throng of scooting, swaying figures.

In the dark, Yamato snagged them an isolated corner where they could move freely. A place for them to be alone, without garnering attention from the many admirers who awaited Yamato's return in vain.

Whatever. As long as Taichi could hear Yamato say his name again.

'Pleasure Drive' faded into Chiasm's 'Isolated'.

" **Isolated"**

"Watch me."

' _That's Jokes!,'_ Taichi thought ' _like I've been doing anything else.'_

But the experience from up close – so close their body heats and idiosyncratic aromas hybridized into a new creation – made it clear to Taichi why no one could take his or her hands off Yamato.

Closed-eyed, Yamato follows the rhythm of the hammering music with his body, again a thrall to a song that is using him as its own and for its debased whims. He is enraptured by the close and immaterial pound of the melody and by the twisting chromatism forming the fractal imagery the rave is made of.

Nothing can touch him. Nothing at all. The world cannot touch him.

"… **Alone and apart…"**

Yamato sways under the allegro of the thrumming bass and the rips of his shirt are positioned just right. His hands are restless on his skin, his neck, his hair that tufts about him in brilliant disarray.

Taichi can only stare and try making sense of his own limbs.

" **See I have no choice but be isolated** **  
** **Threatened, forced to extract the heart…"**

The sapphire in Yamato's eyes comes alight with the dazzling strobe lights and the shimmering colours. Wisps of hair feather around his brow, synchronized with the beat.

" **The monsters make me hide** **  
** **Perhaps I'll eat myself alive…"**

The dancing crowd gathered more and more swinging mobs into its lines and the pressure forming within the centre of that mass shoved Yamato and Taichi into one another. More close, more smouldering, more personal.

"Bloody hell, Taichi! Stop trying to dance with your head! Think less like you got a broomstick wedged up your anus and more like all the fluids in the alcohol you are going to pee in an hour," Yamato almost yelled over other conversations and the thunders of the music.

"And who made you bloody Baryshnikov?!" Taichi shouted right back at him.

"Whoever shoved that rod up your arse."

" **And I stare at lights that make me blind** **  
** **internally there's nothing left for me to be…"**

A few more songs came and went and Taichi had no idea for how long he stood there like a twit and tried to move himself with anything resembling a tempo.

"Bloody awful!" Taichi's sucker-punch-worthy, so-called teacher had a good laugh at him but, in one fluent motion, Yamato rested his head against Taichi's ear, making the delicate hairs behind it whisk and tickle Taichi's cheek.

"Taichi, it's like sex…"

A wicked surge of tremors crawled up Taichi's spinal cord at the mild, but very much existing, caress of platinum hairs on his neck.

"Do it with your cock…"

Yamato took a step back again and used a voice which told Taichi Yamato was gamesome, wanted to play with him and was up to no good: "You don't shag with your head, do you? You shag with your junk! So just get loose already! Don't make me slip you something your coach wouldn't like finding in your blood tests…"

" **Another world, another time…"**

Another song started sieving through the amplifiers.

Yamato seemed pleased and pointed upwards, to the deteriorating ceiling's general direction, where speakers _may_ be hanging from.

"The Crystal Method," he commented. "Nothing beats good 90's Nostalgia."

" **In the age of wonder…"**

Taichi barely worked out any comprehensible words past the blurring effect of computers and synthesizers.

Perhaps a human mouth sang the term 'killer soul' once, but there was something alien to the sound which filled Taichi's head with a thick mist and made apprehension of anything bloody near impossible.

Yamato instructed him to examine the moves of other dancers but most of them used their partners as stripping poles.

Then the female vocals swelled, flashed, and were all around him.

" **Uh** **  
** **I Want You to Trip like Me…"** **  
**

"Taichi, lose yourself. Let the music sweep you. Possess you. Allow yourself to be taken away."

The amused smile was alive on Yamato's lips and there was again that something in the deep whisper with which he said Taichi's name Taichi couldn't... He can't.

"… **I Want You to Have Fun…"**

Yamato lived his music – he was immersed in it completely.

Its waves vibrated on his skin. In his membrane. Dancing.

His motions all flowed.

He tossed his head back and worked himself tirelessly.

This moment was preciously rare. Yamato was sincerely open. The world belonged to him; to his living body, to his hot breath, to his erased blue eyes. He was unrestrained. He was exactly as he should be. And he was happy. From Taichi's perspective – it made each of his moves obscenely erotic.

Taichi used his upper incisors to graze dry scabs off his lips and sucked on his tongue to get more spit into his mouth.

Yamato was made of alcohol dreams, freedom, and the essence of everything 'sex'.

"… **Me & You" **

Yamato was going. Soon he'll be gone.

"… **I've got the world on my back but I don't seem to care…"** **  
**

He was caught up in the sensation of it all. His energy perforated and bubbled to the exterior world in the form of heat and chemical reactions. Still, it stayed conserved within the thin filament of space between him and Taichi.

Stale exhales filled the void left by the distance where their bodies didn't fit into each other.

Every single, unadulterated detail, about everything Yamato is, was infectious. Those alone made Taichi want to join in on the emotional ecstasy he was tripping to.

They are here and time is theirs.

Taichi stood on the precipice of the abyss and all he wanted was to take the plunge. Maybe he could escape from everything and find light somewhere.

" **Trip like I do…"** **  
**

So he shook to the beat and let the flickering lights, harsh gases from smokers, and music lull him into a notch above unconscious state. Otherwise, bones clacking, he was surrendering his awareness and losing trace of coherent thought without knowing what would replace it.

The neon universe fogged and compressed into sheets of Dadaistic art.

All the swirling around him and the outlandish song made Taichi dazed and disoriented, trading sense for nonsense – in the best way.

Unlike some of his friends, he had no idea how first-hand E hits, Amphetamines, or other sum such fun materials tweaked the nerves. From the way his mind cleared from anything except the voices around him, though, or the sensation of floating mid space like a comet sucked into a whirlpool – it can't be all too different.

"… **oh my god this is the best…"**

Yamatosmiled one of his wicked ones and gravitated closer into Taichi, content with the success of his suggestion.

And Taichi was so beautiful. Beautiful. Those gigantic eyes of his. Beautiful. The most gorgeous thing Yamato had ever seen.

' _Tonight... '_

Just tonight, he wanted to pretend; make believe something of the 'everything' he ever wanted was not so far away from him. That _this_ could be the best mistake he'll ever make. That _this_ was allowed. _This_ was real. Only for a little while.

" **Trip like I do…"**

Don't stop.

The smell of sweat. Wet hair. ' _My pounding head'._ His ragged breath. ' _My hips won't stop'._ Bodies scream for encores. Bodies move in self-absorbed silences. This position is hard to maintain. Someone like him… Someone like him… The vocals. The vibrations from the bass on his ' _my'_ lower body. So resonant. Feels so good. Shouting. _'Ringing in my ear.'_

Don't stop.

Don't stop.

' _Ringing in my ear.'_

"… **mmm..I want you to trip like I do…"**

Scalding. Searing. Seething. The world was on fire. Taichi's chest and stomach were set ablaze with whirling sensations, which were too odd, when Yamato's lissom figure pressed against him with delightful friction. Stalking his heat, burning him up.

His vision was reduced to contain only the fluctuating blonde with a heated glance.

Yamato was so fucking stunning. He's delectable.

Taichi had a sound reason for audibly asking, "Is this wrong…?" Only he didn't know who he was addressing or why. He had no idea how to convert what he felt into sound. Stringing words into a line was challenging enough without them connoting any more meaning than they had to. Or any at all.

He tightened the space between them a bit more.

' _ **Too much**_ _is_ _ **not**_ _enough,'_ was all there was to it.

"Do you enjoy it?"

"Yes…"

"Then how can this be wrong?"

The dazzling lights in the warehouse bounced off Yamato's tousled hair, forming a golden crown around him.

Taichi smirked. Yamato may look the part, but he had null intentions of rising to his halo.

" **Can't you can't you trip like I do?"**

Taichi couldn't remember the last time his body felt so sensitive.

Or when he last was so vulnerable.

Their moving bodies met and parted, each nuanced caress demanding of Taichi further stimulation. Its periodical loss left him empty and kindled torrents of senseless need.

It was so pleasantly violent.

"… **can't you can't you trip like I do…?"**

The song played as an extended version of itself – Yamato was sure of it. Or maybe it's set to play in loops. No, it was a fusion of all its variations and has been playing since a forever ago. Because, according to his grasp on time, Yamato'd been dancing to it for long minutes which extended into hours. Maybe weeks. Years.

And now, he has danced into a place existing somewhere between Wonderland and Neverland.

Nevermind.

He loved the heat emanating from Taichi's rippling, hot body – raking over Yamato's ambers. He adored the play of lean muscles under that shirt every time Taichi moved.

Can he make him impossibly hotter?

He wanted Taichi to feel his emotions and he wanted to feel Taichi's emotions for him. Whatever they are. Wanted to feel him there.

Yamato never wanted him more than he wanted him now.

" **Laid down my back I can't sleep cause I'm falling…"**

The distance between them condensed into infinitesimal terms.

Body writhing, gyrating, and convulsing, Yamato's mouth gasped for breath, panting. Blue eyes were glazed with a come-hither look beneath a black fan of smoky, weighted lashes Yamato could barely lift. His lips parted.

He looks so fucking hot.

Vapours from his warm breath are coming in an influx and melding into the air Taichi sucks into his lungs.

"See? It doesn't have to mean anything at all." Yamato was gone. Totally gone.

Since almost an eternity ago, more than half of their conversations were made within silences and left unspoken. There's no point in filling moments with meaningless phrases and useless words. It's a staple of their long-running friendship and understanding. An understanding no one else had. One of those 'deeper than the flesh' connections. Taichi didn't want to contaminate this moment with the question trying to pry open his lips and escape into the sound. Words are empty. Everything meant more now than anything they and their empty noises could explain.

"All you have to do…" Yamato continued chanting lethargically and sweetly, wearing the best of his captivating smiles.

Taichi knew all the smiles in Yamato's arsenal, so he knew this one was new. A smile Yamato made just for him. It made Taichi feel wanted. Wanted and kind.

The rhythm of them moving through each other, and the pace of their external organs mindlessly pulsing into one another, was becoming something aggressive without a shard of anything appropriate.

Each contact made Taichi's head and fingertips insensate.

He easily spotted the drops on Yamato's long eyelashes and felt them flutter. Taichi's nostrils flared to gather the sweat dosed with Yamato's cologne, shampoo, and the invasive, natural scents which were all him. Even over the spicy smoke and other people.

"…Is let go."

Yamato's eyes were dark with things he omitted from his spoken syllables – but those often contained more of a say than anything which went past his gums.

Taichi _loved_ Yamato's lingering gaze of crystalline, midnight-blue, on him. _Loves_ it when Yamato has eyes for no one else. _Loving_ how, when Yamato looks at him, he sees nothing but him and Taichi's reflection takes up all the space in Yamato's overblown pupils.

There was no end to his gaze.

"… **head full of noise I can't think cause it's crushing…"**

Every move Yamato made, every sway or stretch was meant to lure.

Every time he bent over, his sinfully skintight jeans, which outlined his pretty buttocks perfectly, travelled under his hipbones. Slightly – but enough to expose the taunting start of the pert, rounding bits of his physique. It left Taichi with no chance at all.

Every time Yamato raised his hands, his shirt rode up, revealing the hedonistic treat of a flat tummy beneath it. Along glimmered the very sexy, silver line of jewellery puncturing his navel.

It was so flirty, so seductive, so intriguing, so perfect; so him. So delicate. Yamato was so delicate.

"Yama…?"

A subtle 'what…?' in Yamato's posture and bleary, dying stare.

"You're not wearing underwear…?"

And Yamato just smiled at him again kindly.

His pretty hips ground into Taichi's with no semblance of control. They hit sweet spots on the occasional off beats and spun Taichi's head out of the visible universe with pure, crackling passion and desperation.

The pedantic worshipping of his body – Taichi preferred repaying it with further greed and the interesting noises leakeding from him. What's the point in stopping?

The questions which simmered inside him for so, _so_ long were being helplessly answered, one by one, through Yamato's tender, servicing touches in a way Taichi hadn't thought of before.

"… **eyes in my teeth I can't see cause I'm eating…"**

Somehow, Taichi guessed they weren't talking about dancing anymore. Haven't been for a while now.

"… **back on my feet like a freight train I'm coming…"**

This was not the nigh-nymphomaniac, high-on-dopamine-and-Absinth Yamato who seduced Yuri, and every other single organism with a functioning reproductive organs, just because he could. And why care about 'once'? For Taichi, it was inconsequential and may as well have never happened.

With him now was the Yamato only Taichi ever knew in a way he had never known before.

It was just the two of them, absorbed in one another only, in an overture of their own writing. As far removed as the weighted music they were, with no one else in the world and nothing else that mattered in it.

They were lost.

In a world of beauty and danger.

Where night doesn't fall, but rises.

Alone, together.

Somewhere.

Far off.

"… **Oh my God, this is embarrassing** **  
** **Oh my God, this is embarrassing** **  
** **Oh my God, this is embarrassing** **  
** **Oh my God, this is embarrassing** **  
** **Oh my God, this is embarrassing** **  
** **Oh my God, this is embarrassing** **  
** **Oh my God, this is embarrassing** **  
** **Oh my God, this is embarrassing…"** **  
**

From the beginning, they had unwritten and mutely agreed upon game rules.

They were not allowed to breach a line which can't be excused with the tightness of the crowd or the percentage of the liquor in their blood vessels.

At the same time, however, Yamato was stirring Taichi's innards with thin hands. Oh, and those hands – those same, impossible hands sometimes rested a bit too low, stroking against Taichi's hard and most sensitive centre of human satisfaction. As though Yamato was complying with a request Taichi hadn't made out loud.

"This is nice…"

"It is…"

There was nothing innocent about this.

" **Can everybody feel like I do?"**

In a rattled and dilapidated portion of Taichi's mind, the word "Game?" flashed.

It was too different now. No eyes watched them, and there was no one out there to force a laugh out of or purposefully make uncomfortable.

When had Yamato stopped playing by the rules?

' _ **When**_ _did_ _ **I**_ _?'_

"… **can everybody feel like I do…?"**

The beat was too much.

Fast.

Escalating.

Too close.

And intense; so intense and rampant.

Time cracked to a halt between infinity and negative infinity.

" **... Oh my god…"**

Borders were hazy and vanishing in the tide of overwhelming white noise.

Drowning in the ether.

"… **can't you think …?"**

A light shove, out of sync with rest of the spinning events around him, brought a portion of Taichi back into the warehouse, where Yamato almost tripped.

He coiled his arms around Yamato's waist to save him from the fall – hands finding their way under his clothes, holding him, _holding him_ , and seeking more skin. Holding him like he wanted them to weld together, fuse into a single entity through the tissues of their bodies, and just like that – another useless rule had broken into shambles.

Yamato's skin was so nice and smooth. The contours of his body were shapely and accurate, just like Taichi imagined they would be. His hand drew slow, tentative patterns of spherical vines along a refined and shameless stomach only Yamato could possibly possess, seductive little thing that he was.

The tip of Taichi's thumb learnt the feel of Yamato's piercing with attentive fondling – as if it tried testing the borders of Yamato's consent.

Higher? Higher, and the far ends of Taichi's fingers tenderly – so tenderly they may have not existed – skimmed the soft bud of Yamato's nipple. A ripe shade of apricot perking under the touch.

He pulled them closer. Closer. Taichi needed them to be closer. _God!_ Taichi needed them to be closer.

Inside the embrace, Yamato was grappling for oxygen and the smoke he received instead percolated through his arteries and streamed all the way into his skull, setting into a thick cloud in there.

Taichi had such a harsh body.

"Go down with me…?"

The voice coming from Yamato was shaky, almost scared and pleading, as he threw his head back against Taichi's shoulder, eyes shut tight, melting. Liquefied. His head tipped sideways, as though he was asking the question with the entirety of his lithe physique, offering Taichi the long succession of his milky throat. He took Taichi's hands in his and put them on Yamato's lilting hips. "There, feel me…"

Sense of self-preservation torn apart, Taichi's thumbs skated down. The two dots Yamato's hard bones formed under his hips were a point of interest. They were fascinating. Fascinating little bumps. Fun spots to observe and try out. Like a tourist attraction. From that point on, Taichi was willing to go down to wherever Yamato asked him to; down with him, down on him, and all the way down to the underworld.

"I'll do everything you want…" Taichi's breath came in hot, jagged shatters of air as his ethanol-ridden mouth ghosted along Yamato's sublime neck, wanting but forbidden.

' _Maybe I can be stardust too?'_ Yamato thought. ' _Stardust is a great name for a stripper'._

So he rocked his hips from side to side, grinding, swaying like a whore under the undercurrents of raw erotica. Dirty, _dirty_. Begging to be a part of him, shifting under Taichi's eager fingers, Yamato bent over till he was plush against Taichi's lap, where he danced on him gloriously. Working him up. Exposing himself. Answering the pounds hitting his body from behind.

Pressing himself into the soft bowing of Yamato's exhibited, delicious backside and accommodating all his needs, was the most sensual experience Taichi ever had. He met Yamato with a need for relief and both dropped their bodies and climbed back up like an oscillator made of flesh.

"… **can't you trip…?"**

Yamato rotated inside the perfect circle Taichi formed around him and linked Taichi's slow and languid stare with his own. He can do anything and nothing can stop him.

He knew Taichi needed him to be this close now; needed to know he was with him. No matter what.

 _He_ needed to be this close to Taichi. Feel him here.

"Everything…?"

He embedded his nails into Taichi's corded chest and Taichi felt them cutting into his pectorals through the flimsy material of his shirt.

Behind the heavy lashes and easy smile, all slackened with alcohol, the pools of indigo skies around Yamato's dilated pupils were doing to Taichi what they forbade their bodies from pursuing. Sharper than normal and so riddled with passion, they conveyed with no words the precious things both wanted. What Taichi wouldn't have dared doing for himself. What he wouldn't have dared feeling at all.

The old game became dangerous.

The tension turned excruciating and ripped small moans of frustration from Taichi's maw. His heart was hammering, careering so hard inside his rib cage, he expected it to go full Alien-Chestburster on him. His jeans were very compressing _._ The sharp pain they pressed on was going to lead him along the path of horrible regrets during his morning ceremony of depleting the piss in his bladder.

The sounds invaded his head and turned his fraying nerves into intangible whistles.

"… **can't you feel like I do…?"**

"Everything," he said and loved him.

On the rare occasion Yamato unclosed his lids, he was plunged into amber eyes whose irises were scorched with roaring flames. Even Omegamon couldn't light this kind of fire. Those eyes should not be looking at him the way they did.

With wild want.

' _He wants me…'_

With something raw.

Taichi looked like he was waiting. He looked like he was craving something with a primitive hunger.

And Yamato wanted to feed him.

' _I want him to have me…'_

Taichi was making Yamato so spectacularly hot and Yamato wanted his burning mouth all over him, his extremities inside of him, and his delirious pace around him – making him scream. Yamato wanted to be forcefully, passionately, madly fucked; fucked so hard walking would hurt for a week.

' _Have me till I'm dead.'_

Yamato dug his chompers hard into his lip.

"… **can't you walk…?"**

Taichi wanted to dive in and bruise that teasing piece of flesh trapped beneath Yamato's teeth, aching to close the breadth of space between them. He wanted to make a hot mess out of him.

' _ **I**_ _want to drive_ _ **him**_ _to the wall…_ _ **I**_ _want to_ _ **take**_ _ **him**_ _on the floor…_ _ **I**_ _want_ _ **to**_ _tear_ _ **us**_ _both_ _ **apart**_ _…'_

What a bizarre sensation. Yamato was so beautiful to him, Taichi couldn't breathe.

He wanted him.

He didn't want him.

He needed him.

He understood this for the very first time.

Never before had Yamato's physical form been as distinct to Taichi as it was now. Never had Taichi needed something, _someone_ like he needed him right now. Like he needed sex right now. Like a drowning man in the middle of a storm reaching for the life line – he needed Yamato to survive.

' _Is_ _ **this**_ _what_ _ **they**_ _call_ _ **longing**_ _?_ '

But if he'd reach for it, the water would become an infernal ocean and everything would crumble to dust.

Taking him will be suicide.

Leaving him will be suicide.

Taichi's fists shook with restraint. With the need to run his hands all over Yamato. With the need to take over him. With the need to combine with him.

He closed his eyes.

With the need to treasure him

' _ **But**_ _…No_ _ **one**_ _is_ _ **watching**_ _... what_ _ **if**_ _…'_

"… **can't you breathe…?"**

Away from prying eyes, the dark corner they inhabited belonged to them alone.

Their noses gently brushed.

Pants, inhales and exhales tickled open lips, strained and erratic.

Their hearts were close enough to meet and thrum alongside each other – into each other – with a wild rhythm they hadn't known about before. Yet the sensation, in essence, was endlessly familiar.

Intimate.

Their fusion.

He can't be like this with anyone else.

Their fusion.

"… **can't you trip like I do...?"**

He saw through his eyes: he is him as he is now. Their fusion. Yamato needed that. Them fused. Taichi needed that. Their fusion. It's been too long. Too long. He needed that. As him. As him. Fusion. He needed that feeling again. Them fused. _'He is me as I am now_.' Everything he wanted to say to him. Fusion. Everything he said. Fusion. Everything he never said. He needed what only he could give him. Their fusion. He needed him like he can give him.

Their fusion.

Fusion.

"… **like me."**

A voice Taichi didn't recognize and wasn't meant for him sliced a rift through their private world when it said, "luscious bitch".

Within the scope of seconds, according to Taichi's skewed perception of time, he was missing a substantial amount of heat from his arms. One beat later, same voice became a violent gurgling that hit fortissimo with every wallop it made into the foundations of the rackety building they all swarmed.

Next thing he saw was Yamato going full mental on someone, kneeing a bloke twice his size – length wise, width wise, and age wise – in the stomach while trying to grind his Adam apple into his spine. Up until that anonymous hulk hurled a week's worth of meals all over his flabby chin and man-boobs.

"You're not pretty enough to be this daft, you attempted abortion!"

A feral snarl adorned Yamato's vicious face, making him every bit the wolf he was partnered with as he shoved the guy against the wall and chucked him.

' _That bloke's gone for!'_ was Taichi's first analysis of the situation.

Whoever he was, he just poked a nest of African wasps – ' _or are those African honey bees?'_ – and was in it for the sting.

"I'm gonna do something fucking poetic to these grabby snags. Bet they won't go 'round wondering where they shouldn't then," Yamato spat. He was ready to be a complete psycho, which he was, and wanted to feel it. The muscles lining his arm were tense, aching to feel the resistance of meat on bones at the tip of his right hand's knuckles

The song had ended and the juicy crunch of breaking cartilage turned distinct when Yamato twisted the bloke's fingers in an unnatural direction. Several tendons were ripped and popped into the open world they should have never seen.

The short-lived absence of the booming sounds – the ones people needed to distract themselves from existence with – was enough to start forming a small circle of meddlers around their little scene.

Anyone who was here tonight was gagging for a fix of stimulants. Ergo, no one bothered exercising their brains and be finicky enough to ignore fresh gossip – no matter how closely related its value was to a turd in terms of IQ.

"Your mother should have swallowed you!" Yamato shoved his hand into the guy's gob and began pulling out a broken tooth.

When Yamato took out his flick-knife, Taichi figured right about now was a good time to interfere. Before Yamato went for the bloke's jugular and they'd end up in need of a bail. Taichi may be barking mad in his assumption, but somehow he guessed Hikari won't appreciate being woken up at two AM for that reason.

He hooked his arms under Yamato's armpits and locked his fingers behind Yamato's head, pushing it down into Yamato's chest. Manoeuvering like that while trying to pull Yamato back was a bloody _war_.

"Yamato! Calm the fuck down! They'll call the police!" He said it, but also tried not to laugh himself off to oblivion. Yamato had a real talent for using his biting wit to bite the faces off people.

"You can ask my dick if it cares!"

Taichi loosened his hold a bit and snaked his arms around the waist of the wrestling figure dubbed as his agro friend.

"Please!"

Under the restraints of the lock-hold, Yamato relaxed enough to avoid breaking Taichi's arms. He inhaled more of the stuffy gases defining this raving shed, and steadied himself. All throughout, he looked down at the man, whose botched face was licking the floor, like he was about to chop him off and bury the pieces under the tiles of a public toilet.

"Somewhere out there, a tree is working very hard to replace the oxygen you're wasting. Go apologise to it."

Having that done with, Yamato hiked his skin-tights over his sharp hips and turned to Taichi.

"Take me home."

Vision swimming, Taichi nodded his short reply and carved for them a clambering, staggering, diagonal path through the horde with curt shoves and vicious glares; pledges of pain for anyone who didn't move _right now_.

Both needed to cool off something fierce.

The dense air of the warehouse tapered off and began plaiting with the soggy, clammy evening. It wasn't all that much better, really, but it would have to do.

Not yet three metres out and already their view was blocked by a fresh anomaly. It was shaped like some skinny bloke in a silver party hat matching his flashy, lime-coloured dungaree – underneath which he wore nothing. Nothing at all.

All the while, said bloke was acting out his potential as a fabulous piss-artist.

When he noticed he had company, he – so outstandingly and blatantly too sloshed –stammered out apologies profusely while still holding on to his leaking shlong. It still sketched tunnels into the soil for Pete's sake! It was so funny and he was so impressively pissed out of his skull, even compared to them, no one was disgusted. All three just laughed it off.

"That bloke was _eccentric,_ " Taichi cracked when they were out of earshot – not that it would have mattered to that dude either way.

"Didn't look rich enough to be eccentric."

"What does that mean?"

"Rich people get to be eccentric. We poor people are just regular kookoo and I wager he was just a fellow nobody."

Stealing a glimpse at his fuming mate, Taichi caught himself following the small beads of perspiration making the drop from Yamato's nape and into his top, covering his back with a glossy shin. Taichi realised he liked the way Yamato looks right now.

They tried to balance their footing on the oblique terrain – which meant they were insanely zigzagging, since not too long ago they faired only marginally better than that pee-pee man over there. They drank so much their feet didn't feel like their feet!

"All right?" Taichi asked, taking a few more steps towards the unwanted realm of sobriety.

"Pretty knackered."

"Gave that arse a good lip, though. He almost shat himself."

"Can't help it if I wield profanity with Shakespearian mastery. Would have snuffed him out. If you didn't drag me out, I _swear_ to you I'd have slapped him out of Earth's gravitational pull and readjusted him into a Lovecraftian anatomical configuration." Yamato raked his hand through his hair, moving the dankness out of his eyes.

"And if you were too bollocksed to stand, I'd off him for you." Taichi wiped filth off his face with his shirt. "I'm sorry. I wanted you to have a good time, maybe get yourself someone worthy – not end up fanning off nonces on a jail-break. Guess that one went pretty tits up."

Yamato pressed his fingers against each other, bending them backwards to produce crackling snaps from the bones. He did the same with his neck. "It's not your fault. No clue where you got the mental idea of hooking me up with sane, normative people, though."

"You'd be with someone someday. Just figured it better be someone I _know_ is a decent human, is all."

Yamato scoffed. "Thank you, mummy. Will you also give me a biscuit and tuck me in?" With a defiant backward tilt of his chin, he glared at his blud with eyes even Taichi couldn't read. "Clearly, you are mistaking me for someone who has their shit together. While the sentiment is appreciated, it's misguided and I have no idea what Cosmopolitan issue you plucked it from. But…" He tangled stray hairs along his forefinger and meticulously ripped their split ends, voicing his former resolve, "if you had asked and it would have made you happy – I'd let all your football crew gang-rape me all night long."

Someone doing a 'poof' and magically encrusting Taichi's feet in a pair of blocky, cement slippers couldn't have made him freeze over like this one sentence did. He stalked towards Yamato, grabbed his shoulder in a death grip, slammed him hard into a tree trunk, and began shaking. It was the most grotesquely loving, sweetly sick thing anyone had ever said to him.

He jammed his fist hard into Yamato's guts.

"What the abstract fuck are you talking about?! What the hell is wrong with you?! Were your dads brothers or something?!"

Yamato just stood there, cold and deadpan. Didn't look like the physical abuse left an impression on him whatsoever. He found a small bottle of water, which still had a few millilitres in it, tossed on the side next to his ankle. He sagged along the bark, picked it up, took a few sips, and hurled it over the side of the windblown hill. Into a dried up and ugly gulf of thrones and straw it flew and Yamato watched it spin, tumble, jump once, and go nowhere before he had something to say.

"Taichi, you've been acting like a dick with a PMS around me all week. You know it. I know it. So can we _please_ stop whoopty-fucking-doing around this?!"

"What do you –"

"You are bloody miserable, Taichi!" A Cold, hard fact, daring Taichi to refute.

A tense pause followed – so long Yamato considered the option that Taichi got unplugged. That'd be a first.

When Taichi absorbed what Yamato said, he sent him a dirty look. "I am now, Yamato. I was bloody chuffed till you opened your trap."

"Oh, come off it!"

They glared each other down like warriors.

Taichi folded his arms over his chest, gaze skewing sideways.

' _Fuck, he's infuriating!'_ Yamato was fucking livid! Why was Taichi doing this to him?! But if there was something Taichi didn't want to face at a given moment, no one was going to force him. He'll fall into silence and good luck finding him. Trying to pull information out of him was like taking the tour through the tower of London – during 1640 AD.

"I _know_ you aren't as dense as you want to pretend, Yagami! You don't have some rare, psychic gift that goes 'ding' in your head every time shit goes wrong! I notice those things! And I notice them about you better than anyone else!" When Yamato opened his mouth for a breather, he soaked up all the night's two-arse-fuck-thousand percent humidity like a rotten sponge. ' _Fuck'_ this was rotten. Bodacious could have kicked his balls and he wouldn't feel worse. But he was alright with going on talking ad infinitum if they could, maybe, feel less rotten by the end. "I'm your friend…"

Battling his natural urge to smack seven shades of shit out of Taichi's face, Yamato pulled a thread out of Taichi's shirt. Solely because he needed the excuse to touch Taichi again, however he could. It was his try at dispersing the mists of alcohol in him to find reason. "If you really don't want to talk about it, I won't make you. Just, please, do us both a favour and don't stand there and put on a smile when we both know it's a fake. Think about it, all right? And just so you know," a far more laden emotion spilled into his low whisper, "when I see your sadness, I want to make it my own."

From there, Yamato's voice lost direction, assimilating something terrifying instead, like he was stabbed in the back. "You have doubts, Taichi. Right here," he thrust his hand back and forth, sweeping it across the empty expanses of the space between them. "Between the two of us…" and he looked at Taichi with eyes which were far too wide. "Don't you trust me…?"

Taichi recoiled.

"Fuck you!"

"Take a number!"

There they go again.

"No! Seriously – fuck you! You _know_ that's bull, Yamato! That has nothing-"

"It has everything to do with it! After you went off the rocker on Saturday? Avoiding me? Blowing me off? And now you're almost _lying_ to me?! After you, _you_ said we won't 'fight wars alone', you-" he looked away, "… you… _left,_ " his voice frayed at the seams. "Why are you trying to leave me?! I don't want you to leave… I thought…" Yamato glanced up at the sky. Maybe its stellar astronomy would have an answer for him.

It didn't.

It never does.

Never fucking does.

"…I don't know what I thought."

"You thought there is something in this entire universe that could prevent me from being your best friend," Taichi's voice was void of emotions. He was furious but he forced the consonants through his teeth in the calmest manner humanly possible for him under these conditions. Taichi, better than anyone, knew Yamato's loneliness. But hewas the one who walked out on Yamato. _He_ was the one who made Yamato feel the way he didn't want to feel again. _He_ was the one who made Yamato's impulsive honesty sound like _this._ Like now. The disappointment marring those too alcoholically-infused, and colourless eyes made Taichi feel worse than any litre of bad boozecould _._ He didn't forget for a moment his part in this glamorous, multifaceted shit-storm or how mighty close he was coming to driving through his life with no hands on the wheel.

He clenched his fists and forced his temper down, letting his gaze fall and contemplating a nearby bush. When he was through, a placating smile stretched his mouth. "There isn't."

The moment he said it, he was aware it may as well been one of truest thing he ever said.

He could breathe again. Through Yamato, he could breathe again. Within Yamato, Taichi knew, resided sentiments which resonated with his own. Progeny of their shared, amorphous insight into each other's soul. Projection of the way they connected to one another.

"You can't leave, Taichi…" Yamato whispered, tired and used up, while he wobbled up to Taichi to put his palm on the left side of Taichi's chest. A potent rhythm was thriving there and it rapped against Yamato's flesh.

"Don't fall…"

Suffocation. "… You're drunk, Yamato."

"So are you. But you have to stay…" Despite keeping his face dipped in the shadows, Yamato's fingers fell and softly drifted along the familiar texture of Taichi's own.

"This is all your fault…"

He didn't want to say that. Taichi already took on himself more responsibility than anyone Yamato knew. And all the blame. Taichi went and sacrificed himself when no one asked him to. _'No one fucking asked you to!'_ Stupid Taichi.

Regardless, "I know," Taichi agreed, voice almost soundless and tied with remorse – a stark inversion to his usual, fire-ball self who needed at least ten laps around the field to vent out all his pent up energy. But along its dull notes harmonised that uncompromising grit which promised Yamato Taichi is here.

"It's not your fault…" Yamato murmured.

Taichi shook his head, careful not to overdo it before he got Vodka flying out, raffling dead summer leaves from the branch above him. "I was being an utter arse. I took my bullshit angst out on you for no reason." He wanted to say more, but he wasn't sure he'd know how and he didn't have the words. They eluded him. He didn't have any words.

He found his hand in Yamato's hair, throwing the moist strands into sticky disarray and then smoothing them back in place.

Yamato swayed with the motions. The silence Taichi used so he could speak – Yamato understood. A thumb brushed his forehead. It meant, _"You had nothing to do with this. I am so sorry."_ He was looking at eyes that looked right at him. The thumb dropped beneath his earlobe to knead its flesh and nudged the clutch keeping Yamato's earing from falling off. It took a break when Taichi squinted a bit at the edge of his left eye to search things on Yamato's face. It meant… Resolution?… Promise?… Both. _"I promise I'll tell you."_ Yamato smiled. Taichi mirrored him and smiled a tiny bit wider – _"and we'll have a wild laugh about it later."_

"Yamato, I need to figure out some things about myself… on my own… and the moment I do – I promise, _I_ _swear_ , we'll have a talk. I _need_ you to be here when I'm done sorting myself out. But till we get there, the Yamato Ishida _I_ know doesn't let anyone bring him to his knees. Don't say crap like that about yourself in front of me."

Before Yamato's fingers could go anywhere away from his, Taichi snatched Yamato's wrist back and caressed it with his other thumb, basking in the weird anxiety-mixed ease only Yamato knew how to give. "Nine years ago we were hanging from a cliff on an icy island after Devimon has separated us. I told you I won't let go of your hand even if we die. That hasn't changed at all."

As the last sentence came to an end, he met Yamato's eyes with meaning and with the offering of his other hand.

Yamato took it, approving.

"There you are," Taichi smiled.

"Yeah..."

"Yeah…"

Simplistic, monosyllable conversation and throat noises were one of those things that happened sometimes, when the talk needed to die but they still wanted to listen. They weren't special in that regard. Humans are stupid and strange. Yamato was bloody proud.

He remembered that day well, hanging between Taichi's hand and the solid rocks beneath them. Back then, his internal defence mechanism was set on auto-pilot twenty-four-seven. He told himself a million lies before he came to terms with the fact someone who was so true, so brilliant, and _so much more_ as Taichi could accept him. Him, Yamato, who even then had already been blooming into the initial stages of his current fuckedupory. Eleven years – and then some – of meticulously constructed barriers and a carefully composed cool couldn't stand up to a single moment spent beside Taichi's dopey, goofy, idiotic, reckless, shameless, perfect, perfect, _perfect_ smile. Taichi opened him completely and got access to Yamato's life in ways no one should have.

And, _fuck,_ but Taichi was one of those last few humans who had a real bite and the teeth to gnash at life and have a fucking slice right out of its balls. Most people lost it somewhere at middle school, after their life got sucked out by the institution. Not Taichi – and that was one horrific, shit-crazy turn-on.

So how could Yamato forget the first promise between them?

' _God!'_ Yamato wanted to kiss him till his lips turned blue and he dropped dead.

Nihilism – A philosophy suggesting the denial of belief towards supposedly meaningful aspects of life. Most common in the form of existential nihilism, which argues that life has no objective meaning.

Punching walls to make your hands "harder" – while some martial artist do hit hard objects to train their hands, this has to be done in a very specific way and under guidance, otherwise you are risking crippling your hands. So yeah, Yamato doing that is really dumb. Please don't go around hitting walls.

Perfect circle – due to the curvature of time and space as well as the nature of the number pi as a non-repeating and non-terminating number, it is impossible to construct a truly perfect circle in Euclidian geometry. Of course, our reality is none-Euclidian, but the above points still stand. Even the most precise lasers still carry a margin of error, no matter how differential it may be. As a physics student, Yamato knows it, but he's drunk.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Inner Silence. 7 AM. Dusty Road. I'm Gonna Drive Until it Burns My Bones. Crossing a Dream with My Old, Lost Car, its Smell Brings the Dead Memories Back.

Outside, along the streets, waited the hour three AM with its indigo canopy of the three AM, lunar city sky.

Outside, the spell weaved in the rave began dissipating until it was broken. Until it was replaced with a new enchantment. They enjoyed the other's familiar, close presence and silent understanding.

A new dance with no one else in the world to interrupt them.

Silhouettes mashed and indistinguishably blended into one under the scarce illumination. Feeling the silence, laughing drunkenly, spouting rubbish, touching lightly. Occasionally whispering although they were alone. As though raising their voices, however faintly, would awaken the slumbering neighbourhood and cause the cords binding them to deteriorate, fall and crash.

Just listening to Taichi's breath next to his gave Yamato overwhelming happiness.

This was a night to drive with no destination. Run with the wind.

In their absence, a power cut had smothered any sign of civilisation as far as they could see, and from that vantage point – the planet was holding its breath. The skyline and the earth were an unchanging, harmonious sheet of vantablack that brightened to black when their sight adjusted.

The glittering lights, the ephemeris mapping the veins and arteries of life in the city, were gone. Along with them, they took the aggravating disquiet which was the two youth's prime domain till an hour ago.

Instead, unhindered by the artificial lights of harnessed electricity made by Man, the skies exploded with stars and those were vibrant. Pulsing like the plasma giants they were, yielding their stories from thousands and millions of years gone by.

"Fucking mountain goats…"

Taichi glanced aside. Yamato was mumbling to himself. It was a very determined mumbling for some reason.

Taichi shoved his hands into his pockets and went back to looking forward, preferably before he fell on his arse. "What're you on about?"

If Yamato's cognition had been less impaired, he would have snapped up and appeared surprised, but as things were, he just kept on walking. "Sorry. Talkin' to myself…?"

"Ya."

"Sorry."

"Why are you thinking about mountain goats?"

"They're fucking barmy. They just …" he flung his hands around but, fair enough, decided it had had a bad influence on his relationship with gravity. "They stand on walls. A 90 degree, perpendicular wall and they stand _on_ it, Taichi. Their depth perception is _alien_. It's mental."

"No, blud. _You're_ mental."

"Bugger off."

"Why can you still enunciate 'perpendicular' bu – but that's it?"

"Why can you still enunciate 'enunciate'? "

They took a detour so Yamato could take a long piss behind a convenience store, and buy a bottle of Borjomi from the vending machine in front of it.

"How does it feel like? When you're high? I mean… How is it different from imbibing that black piss?" Taichi asked when Yamato reappeared, adjusting his zip.

"Why? Wanna try sucking a joint instead of your coach's dick for a change?" Yamato snorted and uncorked his bottle of salt water.

"No, some of us have a use for our grey matter on a daily basis, Knife of Ramen. 'S just I'm pretty smashed," he giggled, smelling drunk, like it emphasized the point, "and it got me curious."

Yamato considered his answer, trying to put the experience in perspective to anything else he knew. "I am not the type that becomes paranoid. Some people do – and that's too bad for them. Either that, or their dealer sells them something rotten. I guess I become more sensitive, in the sensory sense, and everything around me becomes brighter and starts glowing. I see the Dark Side of the moon and fancy telling David Gilmore he was right all along. It's like the world is being reduced to stars and nebulas and I'm just there, floating in the celestial soup when it's super-positioned in relation to me. 'All is violent, all is bright' sort of feeling. But maybe I did too much astrophysics this semester. I need to smoke at least one bud, though. Otherwise I don't feel dick and fall asleep."

Taichi let out an unfocused tee-hee. "Makes ya wonder how those swotters at your uni's maths department get starkers."

"Everything gets reduced to doughnuts? I donno..."

Taichi showed him a pair of quizzical, bloodshot, puppy eyes. Which is a remarkable array of adjectives to describe one expression which basically meant 'wavey and dense' – but in a nicer way.

"Sorry, topological jokes…"

"Well, stop it. I can't handle your nerdgasms before I'm at least thirty percent more sober."

"You started it…" Yamato pressed the roots of his hands into his eye sockets. "Fuck, I think I just had twenty five different alcohols going through my mouth."

"It's a step up from what usually goes through your mouth..."

"Piss off!" Yamato croaked some vague noise and somehow turned his head to Taichi again. Taichi's eyes are round and big, spilling so much emotion when he isn't aware of it. Sometimes, it was hard for Yamatoto look into them. What came out – came with _so much_ and so fast, Yamato couldn't keep track and got lost in Taichi instead. Then, he just wanted to keep on looking. Like now.

"You have star-shine in your eyes."

Taichi demonstrated the long 'oh!' sound dumb adults do to babies to dumb them down as well. "You're so cute I could just squeeze you," he said with colourful sarcasm and was bloody chuffed about the darkness sparing him and his red face some cover. Taichi was past the point of finding a reasonable, heterosexual explanation to all this. Straight guys don't grope each other and enjoy it the way he did.

"You know, I read somewhere that we're gagging to squeeze cute things 'cause it's our brain's natural reaction to something whose existence it can't compute and decides to kill instead," Yamato inebriated-ly informed.

"What?! That's jokes!"

"I'm serious. Basically, we have the urge to hug kittens and puppies because our primal instinct is to choke the life out of their adorable, furry necks. We are machines that terminate programmes they can't compile."

"We're pretty morbid."

"It was only one article, though, so it doesn't prove shit, and scepticism is a healthy thing to nurture. You can still hug your cat guilt-free."

When Yamato took the first step up the cracked granite stairs that introduced the entryway to house twenty-three, he spun around.

Neither of them did anything more than evaluate the vertical posture of their bodies compared to the kerb or stare at black squares of windows checking the side of his house.

And not talk.

Something switched when they arrived here; the space between them loaded new meanings.

When it was clear standing around and contemplating their navels was going to get them nowhere, and it was becoming a serious pain in the arse, Yamato crossed his arms on his chest. "You staying the night or what?" His voice caught a bit in his throat and he knew why.

Hearing himself, Yamato reckoned he sounded like he wanted to take Taichi home, snog him furiously till his tonsils blew up and maybe do some head-tiltingly kinky shit to him. He did want all those, of course; it was all true. It always had been – but it hadn't been so tangible before. Smiling big and wide and stupid became uncontrollable to him.

Since Taichi almost always crashed over at Yamato's place during weekends, it was a pretty standard question, but Taichi caught the subtle shift in nuances that made it anything but. It smelt and tasted different.

It carried undertones which Taichi was not used to. The dark gleam in Yamato's eyes was one which was not meant to be directed at him. But it was so beautiful nonetheless; and Inviting. Too inviting.

Comparing the fantasies Taichi had of him with how Yamato was now, in the darkness, with only the blue moon illuminating his sharp features… Comparing them with this oh so rare, open smile that's covering him and which puts the milky-way galaxy in his eyes – like he belonged somewhere among its celestial euphoria… For Taichi, no one person should be this beautiful, because he was ten, _no!_ Google! _No!_ Googolplex times more … And real… With all his attention trained solely on Taichi. When he had eyes only for him.

Caught in this dream-like moment, Yamato's beauty was empirical and violent.

Taichi reclined against the railing and let his arms dangle limply behind it. He bent his leg at the knee while groping with his foot for one of those decorative rods fences often come with to rest it against.

Now Yamato was a few centimetres closer and one head taller.

"Did you have anything in mind…?" _'Holy shit!'_ This suggestion did not just come out of Taichi's mouth.

Yamato smiled further, the gesture spreading almost to his molars and making him shy. "Whatever you want…" Was inflected with gravity.

No matter how he felt, or how he wanted to feel, even for Yamato there were lines which were not meant to be crossed – _not_ unless both of them were in the _right_ mind and in the _same_ mind. Those between best friends, blood brothers, who went through hell and back, and would gladly do so again as long as they were at each other's side, were supposed to be big and thick ones. The kind of thickness designed to stand firm between him and unreasonable, drunken impulses.

But Yamato was still drunk beyond reason and still pumped from adrenalin, serotonin, and dopamine, and the night was intoxicatingly beautiful, and all the lines blurred into non-existence, and his mouth moved on its own, and he couldn't stop himself from flirting. Not with how prettily Taichi stretched before him now.

What the hell was wrong with him?! And what the hell's wrong with Taichi?! Why wasn't he pushing Yamato away, telling him he was too drunk? Crossing the line? Even calling him a fag at the cost of Yamato inflicting something awful upon his nose. Was he getting some sick kick out of watching Yamato turn himself into a horny doormat?

' _Please, Taichi, don't let me build a hope about what I tortured myself over and burnt down years ago. Don't make me feel like shit over you.'_

Those words, a reprisal of his own, spiked something heavy inside Taichi's intestines. Everything he drank so far posed a viable threat. It was about to come out of him through a long visit to the bog that's gonna resemble a whole lot the process of pushing angry cats out from his anus.

"Sorry, man, Hikari wants me to drive her to a friend's party tomorrow." The decibels of his voice put it under the murmuring stage and his eyes peered tiredly at Yamato's, like he didn't believe a single word he said and was only reciting from a textbook.

Yamato inched towards him, a speck of a distance which felt light years long. Just close enough to touch.

' _But, he always is and it's not enough'_

"You sure? With all those wild boars? Com'on – stay. " The content of the question was a tease but anything else about it was something different. There was more to it than what he allowed to reach the surface. This trend of conversation started to irk Taichi.

From what Yamato recalled, Taichi had a major grievance with wild boars. Last year, Taichi and some of his lads, along with Daisuke and their respective siblings, went camping in the forest nearby. Yamato was passed out at home during most of that event but from what he did remember – it went something like this…

 _Woken-up Yamato was going to deck whoever was on the other side of the line._

" _The fuck?"_

" _It's 3 a.m. I'm on a tree," Taichi reported through the phone._

 _Yamato grunted something that passed as quizzical._

 _._

" _Wild boars snuck our snacks."_

" _How high are you?"_

" _About 3 metres up. Why?"_

" _No, I mean what did you smoke?"_

" _Your face if you won't come pick me up."_

 _In the meanwhile, Daisuke couldn't be arsed to be awake when his mates hoisted him up to the branches, still tucked cosily in his sleeping bag. To the day – he's unsure of how he got up there._

 _Apparently, Yamato went to the cabinet, pulled out a bottle of Akashi Red, and swung a few shots to make the story he heard make more sense before he deposited himself in the bed again._

" _Sorry, mate, I'm on the piss. Don't drink and drive!"_

Yes, it was that kind of night.

 _His next memory was Taichi's knee jamming itself into his tailbone seven hours later._

Taichi still resented Yamato for it, but the miscreant thought it was almost as funny as that almost-sober strip-Mao game they had on the roof of their old high school.

Taichi knew Yamato wasn't meant for him – but felt so much like he was.

He knew he could surrender his precious control to the sounds and lights in his head. He knew he could throw back his head, stretch his neck, reach a bit further up and expose what the night had threatened to unravel from its conception. He knew Yamato would not say no – he was too high on a Dopamine and Norepinephrine cocktail. And still far too palatic. He knew they'd climb these stairs to somewhere. He knew what would follow but he didn't know what lay behind the door or what the dark ambiance would bring.

"Stay…" Yamato whispered – his sounds only barely alive over the evening's summer wind and his knuckles barely existed, gliding as they willed over Taichi's own.

Taichi didn't want to let him go. Even if he hadn't thought about it before, or never would have thought about it, it didn't mean he couldn't tell when it was right. However, Taichi was not ready to risk one of his most precious relationships for something they both might regret. Even if, in some place, inside him, Taichi already knew he won't.

Yamato, on the other hand, wouldn't appreciate being the experiment ground for Taichi's fluctuating sexuality. Also, whoever Yamato was, or is, in love with – Taichi didn't want to be a rebound, and there wouldn't be more to it than that as long as Yamato belonged to someone else in his mind.

' _For someone who uses his mouth as currency, his feelings sure are unwavering'._

"Yamato." A shift, and now Taichi was serious, "you know that if I stay, we won't sleep tonight," and there was certain intensity to the way he said it which widened Yamato's eyes at the latent implication.

' _This came out perfectly wrong.'_

' _ **Or did it come out perfectly right?'**_

"Not when I finally got my hands on the new Saint's Row," Taichi added, covering his blunder. Technically, it wasn't a lie. He had substantial plans on getting his grubby paws on that shooter since midterms and play over at Yamato's place. "And you know how Hikari is now…"

Yamato gave Taichi an obligatory nod along with a smile which didn't have much energy packed behind it. "… Night's been brill. Despite the bollocks. Cheers. 'Night." Yamato knew when he was being dismissed. Besides, it was a good time to leave anyway – he was almost getting happy.

For that contrived second, all Taichi wanted was to mush Yamato with a sweet, virginal peck on the cheek before saying 'Good night.'

' _Why did he make it sound like we just came out of a date? What's with those mixed signals?! How do Yamato's eyes get so sexily horny?! And how did I end up with more questions than answers?!_ _Do…do I…?'_

Of course Taichi didn't follow this intuition. No matter how much the deep-seething urge in him, to feel Yamato's skin beneath him and touch his face, burnt. He mumbled some half-arsed reply whose pitch was higher than he intended, and watched as Yamato retracted, blending seamlessly into the interior blackness of the building.

' _But… say I accidentally had sex with him…'_

' _ **Accidentally how?'**_ Crept that rotten inner voice again, ' _ **your dick detached itself and went to bugger him up the arse without delivering you the news?'**_

' _Will it really make me gay?'_

' _ **Not necessarily, but you thinking about it so much makes you about as gay as rainbows humping fragrant care bears.'**_

' _And how will it be like? Being with him? Like that?'_

' _ **There will be blood'**_

So… what now? Taichi was torn between regretting everything and regretting nothing but he reckoned he couldn't continue blaming everything on Mimi's knickers.

The alternative was to put two and two together: there is a person he loves being with, a person who makes him happy, and a person he intends to always keep by his side.

A person he loves _so much_ on so many different levels of that emotion. And not only did he love him, he is, apparently, madly attracted to him.

There is a name for that.

' _But you are such an important thing, Yamato'_

Their lasting friendship was the single, most important thing. Taichi refused sacrificing it on the altar of satisfying his unstable whirlwind of contradicting emotions and belated pubescent curiosity. Even a wild night of raw, dirty, rock-star-level sex was not worth it.

Talking with Yamato tonight, venting at him, gave Taichi some blessed relief. With his mind clearer, he started to get an idea of what he wanted, but he needed to be sure before doing anything about it.

Drunk or not, his heart slammed into his ribcage like a motor on a speedway. Taichi brushed his fingers against the front of his trousers. Painful as sin! There was a monster behind his zip that hurt so bad, he didn't want to imagine the kind of Middle-Ages-quality torture he put it through. Still, he'd go home, slap some aloe on it, and touch himself to the thought of what could have happened an hour ago… That sweet lap dance Yamato gave him. He was so filthy too, grinding against Taichi's crotch like that.

Then, Taichi would find a girl. Fast.

He turned and walked into the hour of the wolf, monitoring his steps near every side-street since the canines – and the wild boars – were on the prowl.

The truth remained hung between them, an unspoken midnight conversation.

He wrote this song so long ago. It hadn't been sung and would not be recited to anyone, nor translated into chords to compose a melody. Its current state was as it should be.

"… _ **On such a lonely night,**_

 _ **I want to embrace you through the ceremony of darkness.**_

 _ **On such a dissonant night,**_

 _ **I am trying to connect**_

 _ **To the echo of your footsteps, lost in the far nocturnal orbit,**_

 _ **But chimes in the hour of rebirth,**_

 _ **I will remain,**_

 _ **Wasted,**_

 _ **At your feet"**_

He picked up the lighter from his back pocket and burnt the paper down. The inked words were annulled from existence, scattering as ashes over the rims of the windowpane and into the faceless night. No one was there to bark at him for being a trainee arsonist, so he felt justified. Right now, he was just another one of the billions of people who populated the darkness with his thoughts.

"Come on, baby, light my fire…" he hummed, cynical.

Without Yamato bothering to shut off his computer before leaving, the Media Player was left to run unobstructed, shuffling through his track list. Since Yamato returned, it filled the empty house with the eerie, avant-garde sounds stirred by 'Procession of Dead Clowns' and the genius percussion work of Blut Ous Nord.

To be honest, Yamato was both relieved by Taichi's decline and a bit hurt.

' _I swapped tongues with the entire world, its sister, its cousins, and probably the family's pet bitch today but not with the one person who's worth it.'_

He told himself it was for the best. He got Taichi back and things were moving back on route; back to a state akin to normality for them.

If he and Taichi had drunken… _no_ …he didn't want to think about it.

' _But it would have felt so good…'_

He did get some masochistic sort of fun from imagining how a future where they fucked today would have been like. He found himself coming face to face with questions that needed to simply not be relevant to existence in any way, shape or form. _Fuck,_ his fuse was reaching a danger zone synonymous with a slew of spontaneous Molotov cocktails.

For one, he wondered, with no little measure of _blach_ , why people called it 'becoming more than friends' anyway.

' _I don't know what kind of crappy friendships other people have, but mine mean some serious shit.'_

He and Taichi were closer in their friendship than any one of them apart was to their sexual partners. Hell, they were closer as friends than most people were to their spouses or families.

What can possibly be "more" or stronger than the bond shared between two people who saw it through everything together, like what he and Taichi went through and what they felt for each other? Or the love of a child to his parents? Of a lonely man to his dog? A soldier to his comrades? Real friendships can be as intense as staring right at the centre of a fucking quasar. Some people think friendship has to have limitations, when, in fact, it doesn't. Limitations only exist in people's minds.

Romantic love was not more or less than any other form of love. It was just a different version of the sentiment or a morphed version of any of the other kinds. No two loves are the same for everyone either, for the simple reason no two people were the same. A perfect symmetry between emotions was not humanly possible. There is no one way to love and there is no right way to love. You just do.

Yamato didn't want to taint his relationship with Taichi with those superficial notions. When it came down to it, wanting to have sex with someone you love is natural. Going by Aristotle, wanting to have the bodies unite so the two parts of the soul will meet, is natural. Wanting to experience the physical manifestation of the connection you share with the one person who is closer to you than your existence can feel in its own skin, is natural. Closer than anyone got to be. Because there is this nameless thread that starts coiling and doesn't end. Its heat's a bit higher than room temperature; texture's like plasma. It moves on its own, putting his words in your mouth and your sight in his eyes. It moves under his nails and your nails. That's why there's this tingle when your hands interact. It snakes through the blood, to the brain, and aligns itself with your spines to travel down your neurons and be everywhere. Then, even when your existence doesn't feel like being in its own fucking skin, you still feel him. The middle of this cord is where you two meet, outside of your bodies, in a fraction of undefined space but one which belongs to you two alone, and fuse. None of it has to be only within the narrow and restricting confines of standard "romantic" relationships.

And it's not some bloody secret that's supposed to be deep and philosophical. The gates of heaven did not pry open in a mystic fit of cheesy Valentine songs and no aliens were involved. This is good ol' simple maths: Yamato added two and two together when he considered how his parental authorities no longer wanted to shag each other while he, on the other hand, was very much interested in having his best friend shag him.

 _Without_ changing that special connection they had in any way.

He figured then and there how love between individuals takes many forms. Intimacy, familiarity, and mutual understanding were what mattered at the end of the day.

In Yamato's book, love was conflated with lust too frequently. The whole stigmatic and pseudo-romantic way relationships were viewed, and way too often portrayed, stunted the natural development of feelings between people. It twisted them to fit some cookie-cutter, media-made model.

Not that there was anything inherently wrong with either lust or romances in their own right. Not at all. His grievance was with the way romance was viewed as a top-priority all over the place – which was plain _wrong._ People can live very satisfying lives without involving romance in them _at all_.

' _We were not born for someone else. We were born for ourselves.'_

Especially since certain interpretations of "Love" and "Romance" became a serious cringe-fest when kid-cartoons convinced people snogging sleeping ladies was anything but sexual assault. Or there's this thing with many films not showing the actual relationship – only how the relationship ended up happening. And why don't they? Because after those first few months, the endorphins die down and real life comes calling. And real life isn't sexy enough for filmmakers. That's fine and all, but, thing is, some of those versions of "romance" are completely mental. Probably because people still misinterpret what Shakespeare had in mind with "Romeo & Juliet". Though most people also don't know that what made Shakespeare rise to his literary prominence was conceiving the first "your mama" insult. Take someone who didn't grow up feeding off Hollywood's interpretation of love, let them see a rom-com for the first time, and they're likely to reach the conclusion that the entire cast is psychotic. One can argue the point films meant to cater to escapism, but at the end of the day, everyone wants something that is real.

This got worse when the same folks began imposing that insane view on their children. Reading more sexuality into their nippers' actions than what was there, dividing into gender roles, and continuing the cycle.

Society ended up with people who thought the opposite sex is meant for procreation only and a big, muddied puddle of ignorance in between. Everybody else is drowning in the leachate and garbage juice formed in the middle.

Actually, not just the opposite sexes. Wherever Yamato looked, there was such a weird attempt to force a distinction between 'lover' and 'friend' – like the two can't, or aren't, supposed to mutually coexist. Which is such a pile of rubbish. What's the point in forming a relationship at all if its building blocks are sub-par orgasms? Hello, yes – that's what Kabukicho is meant for.

As far as Yamato was concerned, true love on his part existed for those he was willing to do everything for; those he didn't want to do without – his friends. Even if some madcap, sci-fi scenario where he and Taichi have sex will come to pass – the "best friends" part will still be the most crucial part of their relationship. The banging bit will be an extension of that closeness or a physical manifestation of it.

The 'romantic love' side of that equation – sure, why not? He welcomed it, but not as substitute, not as the focal point, and by no means as a step up from anything. Not for a moment did Yamato believe in that "soulmate" made-for-kids crap. Only Gabumon, and the rest of the Chosen Children's partners, could come in any way close to filling that role.

Taichi he wanted because he wanted.

Yamato opened his mouth and weird noises, that couldn't possibly be his, gushed out of it. He didn't see it coming but didn't make an effort to stop it either. It was like a parody of how laughter works and nothing about it was natural, or funny.

He sounded so fucking weak, Yamato wanted to choke himself and shut down his vocal cords.

The roots of his hands flew up to his eyes and he pressed them into his sockets.

What the fuck was that thought even doing in his skull? What fucking romance?! What the actual fuck?!

It's not like anything or anyone will do. Not any longer. Though Yamato reckoned he deserved massive credit for trying. Like a Nobel peace prize massive. If bed-jumping had been an Olympic sport, he would have had the podium for himself, decorated with all three medals.

But there is only so much comfort anonymous body heat can give. There is only so much that can be done to forget what cannot be had. The duration of that blessed numbness doesn't last either because you become anesthetized. Then more and more partners are needed to reach the old high.

For Yamato, it used to be like heroin in a twelve condom pack. If the girl had the right tan or that specific shade of brown eyes, or if some bloke had the proper shoulder width – it would do. Yamato was sold.

There was also the issue where he was _still_ a man, and back when he was a dumbarsed teenager and his testosterone was coming out of his ears and his competitive parts pretty much took the reigns over his sex life and then some – all he wanted to do was race against bloody fucking everything. Suddenly he wanted to fuck someone. Because his biochemistry said so. And he knew how often Taichi got it on and there was no way in hell Yamato was going to be left behind. He didn't care with whom.

As long as he wouldn't feel Taichi was leaving him.

An hour of sex was a drag, but a quickie was a decent confidence boost. For him – not his partners. He often left them black, blue and limping, gormless twat that he was. He'd take them like he wanted to take Taichi. But they _weren't_ Taichi, and midway he'd get pissed off at them for not being Taichi and for not being able to take him in, and things would get _bad_. Till today Yamato had no bloody idea what he tried to achieve by that. It was like he tried to fuck Taichi while wanting to prove to himself he didn't have to fuck Taichi.

Until one day his inner, ultimate nihilist saw the futility of it all, asked him why he was doing all these things and told him to get a grip and get over himself.

Unless, much like tonight, it was for whatever Taichi wanted him to do. And much like back then, tonight Yamato saw something which evaded him for too long: It was after they first formed Omegamon that Yamato began understanding what Taichi was for him. The sense of being made inside of someone and have someone made inside of him – _he wanted that feeling back._

For as long as Yamato lived, Taichi was his only experience of _this_ love, whatever _this_ love was, he had experienced. This love which is also a bit 'in love', almost like how he was in love with the idea of life, and that's also 'best friend', and then there are also millions of unnameable shards which bleed together, into each other. This isotropic love that challenged love and its boundaries. Love, but "more" than love. He didn't think he even knew words that meant what he had.

Yamato couldn't bring himself to let it go in favour of shyly holding hands with virgins on moonlit beaches, or doing all the other mushy load of censored crap that's always seen on romantic Christmas films which's supposed to pass as love. Even if it meant to never be reciprocated.

It isn't important enough and it wasn't enough, period.

He wanted totorn be into cosmic dust of the most fundamental particles conceiving the universe. He wanted to wallow in the puddles of his own blood, bone marrow, gore, and existential bodily fluids; the stuff everyone knows they're made of, but prefer denying for aesthetic reasons.He needed something which made him feel. Neededsomething which left permanent marks _._ He needed to be ruptured so he could be _fused._

And there wasn't a speck of anything romantic about it.

That was Taichi for him.

The sensation of spinning and spinning and spinning in a loss of equilibrium from howling winds and the brilliant sun. Always caught and lost and found in the flow of Taichi's gravitational pull.

He was his best friend and precious thing. He was his many things. He felt as though he shared his soul with him.

Love isn't romance.

There was no category serving as a home for his inextricable emotions. They were their own beings in their own right and all he could do was feel it. Only feel it. Feel it so deep it hurt his bones.

He got this idea sometimes, especially when he smoked, that he wants Taichi to crawl into his skin so he could experience the corporeal world through Yamato, from inside. Like everything else in Yamato and Taichi's lives - it was from another world altogether and when he thought about it, it almost scared him.

Through Taichi and Gabumon, Yamato found _friendship_. He found _himself_. And he was needed; someone _needed_ him.

With everything they went through, how could he not feel like he did?

The bitter truth was that, statistically, it would be almost impossible for him to feel this way towards anyone again.

His phenomenal evening was turning into a torrent of hazy and conflicting emotions and he was so, _so_ tired from dealing with this shit.

Taichi's straight. That's it. Yamato had no delusions about that. It wasn't going to change any time soon. Taichi even went out of his way stretching to Takeru just how much he _isn't_ attracted to Yamato last week – and why would he? There was an ocean of girls out there who were willing to drop their knickers and spread their legs if Taichi so much as snapped his fingers. His knob would get more visits than YouTube if he so much as wanted to. Why would Taichi go for a guy? Why would he go for someone like _Yamato_?

Normally, it didn't bother Yamato because sex wasn't what he needed from Taichi the most. But normally, Taichi didn't behave like… ' _What?_ _Like he wanted to plow my arse?_ _Like he wanted_ me _? Sure he did. Wow… I found the new low of sorry and pathetic and unsurprisingly, it smells like the by-products of a Tequila-based enema'._ He had no fucking idea how this thought shoved itself into his cortex, though he reckoned that if he'd never _say_ bullshit like this out loud, he'd live. 

Yamato wasn't an unhappy person, but everything he had was what he took for himself by fighting for his place in the world. Life didn't shower him with excess joy either, so it was safe to assume there was no reason for it to start now. He had no clue how he got the crazy idea back at the rave that, today, it would make an exception and deviate from its normal course for him by recalling how he, too, was a human being with urges.

So what if Taichi got extra affectionate today and fondled him all over as if he was checking the goods of some side-street whore? And so what if he got so turned on, he imprinted the shape of his rock-hard penis to Yamato's backside? Or even flirted back like there was no such a thing as shame in the world?

Who didn't?

Who fucking didn't? Who didn't flirt with him today one moment and tried shoving a finger up his arse the next?

Taichi was just in on the trend. Besides, he was so fucked up he would have shagged a turtle if he found one and were still functional enough to operate his pants.

None of this meant dick. None of this meant anything at all.

' _Fuck_ , _I'm such a screw up…_ '

Taichi's sloppy fingerprints were still all over Yamato's stomach, waist and arms, but now they were ambiguous and misplaced.

It was like that weird state of mind he'd be in sometimes; when he did something, but it didn't feel like he was the one doing it. More like he was a spectator, viewing his life from the side, while his body was under the control of his Para-sympathetic nervous system which treated him like a biomechanical string-puppet.

Or like when he could have prevented an accident if he got off his arse and acted, but something inside him decided to allow it to happen out of borderline dangerous curiosity. After the fact, he'd be left standing and behold the horrible chain of events play out like a bloody Michael Bay film and wonder why the operative ninety percent of his brain didn't reign in the renegade ten.

' _Fuck! Shit! Why?!'_

Why couldn't he peruse this one little thing for himself?!

' _Because I love him too much.'_

Undisrupted, he and Taichi would have been sloppily sucking each other's faces by now – and whatever other body parts that would have become accessible.

' _He almost kissed me…'_

It's not like Taichi didn't know it either, and Yamato almost felt as if Taichi was teasing him with proximity. That is, until Taichi pulled off that piss-poor excuse about Hikari and bolted, tracing a big, fat-ass line in the sand with a big, fat-ass stick, and put Yamato on the other side of it while he was at it. Telling him he didn't want to spend any more time with him.

Yamato wanted to believe every single word that came out of Taichi's mouth when he said he wouldn't let go of his hand. However, Taichi's "good night" was too much like a "good bye" and he kept on walking away. He kept on falling away from Yamato. He left.

Why did he do it?

Why?

Yamato knew he was being naïve when he expected their bond to be able to abate Taichi's fears and problems, or anything else that stood in his way, all the time, like it was some miracle. But he couldn't help himself. Often, Yamato really did feel that, together, he and Taichi can transcend anything. He expected Taichi to feel the same. Was it too much?

More intimate than sex, and even more than kisses – Yamato wanted to hold Taichi's hand. That's all. He could be happy.

Yamato buried his face in his hands.

He was alone.

He wanted to open the toiletry cabinet under his basin and pull out the box of fresh shaving razors. He wanted to take one and slice up his inner thighs till he could play Sudoku on them for a month. Just divorce himself from the mental wreck he was. To have some sort a climax to this bollocksed evening – that's all he wanted.

But _no!_ __Even this much was taken from him by that bogus promise he made to Taichi.

Yes, technically he only promised not to cut deep, but if he'd start again, moderation won't do him any.

He wanted to pick up his digivice from its place on the nightstand and call Gabumon. He wanted those furry, blue paws to wrap around him and make him feel wanted and cared for. But like hell will he let his Digimon partner see him like this. Gabumon didn't need his best friend's gloomy-drunk state. This human component – Gabumon deserved better.

Yamato wanted a hug.

How come the few things he wanted for himself he was not allowed to have?! This was nary a modern, one-man re-enactment of the stories of Genesis. He was almost tempted to go down to the 24-hour supermarket near his house and get a few cheap and nasty-tasting fags.

It's not like he ever indulged himself with the idea that someday Taichi would want him in quite the same way he wanted Taichi, or see him with quite the same lenses. Yamato didn't imagine Taichi would have him like he wanted to be had or somehow want to be with him in quite the same way he wanted to be with Taichi.

None of it mattered, though. Platonic worked for him fine. His platonic emotions were no less real or less powerful than his non-platonic ones. Yamato could live on the rest of his life without any of this, without a lover, and even without sex at all. He's been single and he'd be more than happy to continue being single. Not once did he feel lonely because of it.

It's just… he never imagined his life without Taichi.

Taichi… Taichi was demanded to stay.

Maybe in the morning Yamato'd wake up with a clearer, less intoxicated head and remember Taichi was allowed to have his mood swings and that they were important for him to have; that he did promise to tell Yamato what's going on when he'd snap out of it.

It offered Yamato no consolation _now_.

Even during their more serious confrontations and the awkwardness which followed, Taichi hadn't behaved before like he did lately and Yamato was running out of ideas on how to contend with this situation.

Who goes from being chuffed with life one moment to ignoring his best friend the next, to being thoroughly oversexed over said best friend's arse to the point of almost fucking him through his clothes, only to turn it around and bail at the end? Seriously, who fucking does that?!

They may have pumped themselves with the equivalent of a small lake in terms of alcohol, but there is a limit to how much that can be used as a legitimate excuse. If Taichi was able to stand, dance, and form intelligent conversation before the night was over – he should have been able to at least tell the difference between the fuck-hole he wanted to use and the one he didn't.

Yamato didn't know what Taichi wanted anymore.

Taichi had always been one of the few secure things in his life – a real anchor. The strength of his convictions was the bastion from which Yamato drew his own. Taichi believed in him even when Yamato didn't believe in himself.

Now everything has been destabilized and there was no longer control. Yamato wasn't his own. His world was the hands of strangers and he was submerging and dying without anyone fucking telling him why.

He was too fucking tired. Too fucking tired to continue trying to work out why Taichi doubted them; doubted _him._ Yamato was too fucking tired to try and work out what he did wrong _this time_.

Maybe it's high time he got emotionally invested in someone else for real, at least for a while. A distraction. Just because he can't let his feelings go doesn't mean he can't let them lie – and pretend.

He plucked his phone from his back pocket and texted Yuri some booty call before hurling the device across the hall and into the kitchen. It made a clanging noise against the chair, but no tell-tale jingle of multiple glass and metal scraps raining on his floor was attached. Yamato assumed he'd be thankful tomorrow the bloody thing survived his tantrum.

' _I'm such an idiot, Taichi. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry'_

He hadn't felt this wretched since… since Taichi almost... for him.

Once upon a time, everything used to be simple and naïve. He was simple and naïve. Usually, he felt like the world was this huge place.

When did it become so small…? Or maybe he was the one who grew too big for it and was now being crammed from all sides like a piece of canned, minced meat. What happened?

Yamato kicked his desk and continued kicking any slice of stationary furniture that could give him a sufficient fight. Whatever wasn't too heavy to lift with one hand, he tossed to the ceiling and didn't give one shit where it landed. It was a free-for-all experiment with trajectories and potential energy.

After one round in his room, he got to the old wooden door separating him from the rest of the house and started punching it. The third Punch scraped off the lacquer from its surface, leaving the board with dents and his fist with splinters. By the tenth his knuckles were raw and skinned.

Bile rose in his throat.

Never in his life did he throw up from alcohol and he didn't discharge since he was five. As far as he was concerned, his gag reflex died when he learnt deep-throating.

But he didn't swallow it back and didn't care enough to run to the toilet and puke his entrails out into the bowl. He just let it come out all over his feet while he continued beating up his house – a few more pasty lumps flying out of his mouth with every hit.

There is a time in every man's life that make him wonder when – between watching after-school cartoons, saving the world, and standing in a personalized pool of his own vomit – did life become such a cesspool of bollocked shit.

Yamato was at that point. He wanted to tear the world apart and see himself bleed.

When there was nothing left for his intestines to reject from his body, he gathered the rancid remnants of contaminated saliva with his tongue and spat into the chunky puddle.

Residual acid flavour scratched his face, stomach to pharynx. But he wasn't broken and he won't break. What he was, however, was bloody drained. In every sense of the word.

Chaosophia played Schizophrenia on his computer and he shut them both off. He shut off any other external noise with earplugs, shoved his head into an old beanie, and covered his face.

Yamato was a light sleeper who'd be woken up by the sound of a fly munching on faeces in a different apartment on a good day. Today was _not_ __a good day.

He didn't want to sleep. He wanted to scream.

He was introduced to a new level of cranky, and he had an explosive temper even when he wasn't in this sort of mood. So, when he crashed into his pillows, he wanted the world to become mute in its last dying notes. He wanted the world to be dead.

It died a glorious death in the augmented fourth of an E minor somewhere in the event horizon.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12: All the Fears are Mine, Papers, Planes and Time. Some People Never Even Ask, What are You Thinking? Who Wrote Your Words? Help Me Get Away From Myself.

When Yamato woke up, his mouth tasted like a week old corpse. The mucous gathered at the back of his oral cavity had a syrupy texture, he had to squint several times to get over the existence of sunlight, and he swore the Transformers were having a violent showdown against the Avengers in his head right now.

He stumbled out of bed, jumped over the puddle of gunk he left himself as a souvenir yesterday, turned his head, and gremmed into it. With the gob out of his throat, he made a sharp turn into the bathroom, doused his mouth with a discounted, swirly-blue toothpaste, and brushed his teeth like he was filing diamonds.

The first thing on his agenda was to be able to live with himself and stop feeling kinship with a bideu in a whorehouse. That really set the tone for the rest of this day. He was going to spend it cleaning up shit, losing his shit, and pretending to have his shit together.

The second was to return the house to a state it could be lived in.

Yeah, he kinda hated his last-night-self at the moment.

He glanced over at his used-up, splotchy reflection in the mirror who gnashed its teeth right back at him, trying to find himself in the man on the other side of the glass who looked like he died from the bubonic plague after not sleeping for seven years. With the foam spilling from his mouth, he was more a rabid dog than a human. It was inspirational – he should go out on the street and try biting something hard enough to break it.

He was all werewolf on the inside from that point on.

One hour, one mop, two rags, an air freshener, and a blitzed shower later – Yamato was able to tolerate the state of being awake again.

He found his cellphone under the kitchen table with its battery screaming for salvation in the form of a plugged cable and an electric surge. The small envelope icon blinking on the left of his screen alerted him to two new messages waiting to be attended to.

One was from Koushiro –asking him when he wanted to meet for the Matlab tutoring. The other was a reply from Yuri – asking him when he wanted to hook up.

' _Definitely hate myself from last night'._

Admittedly, Yamato was surprised Yuri even answered. Actually, he'd dare say he was pleasantly surprised. Unless they were pretty permissive regarding their dick's taste palate, most blokes got weirded out after their first nookie with another guy and bolted. In an alternative dimension, Yuri would be a keeper.

Thus, Yamato told Koushiro to wait for him at Lovelace's, the building housing the software engineering faculty, in half an hour. Regarding the footballer – he'd deal with him the moment he'd figure where he-bloody-self was at.

He also considered fetching a makeshift breakfast or something. Stuff cornflakes down his throat and wash it down with milk from the carton. But he was pissing in the wind if he thought he could, eh? He hadn't eaten properly in days and his trousers were getting loose around his impromptu disappearing arse's width.

Another week like this, and he'd lose an entire dimension from his proportions. It seemed like the only thing his stomach could contain at the moment was Taichi's bitching.

Yamato slung his laptop case over his shoulder and made it out of his flat. When he hit the second floor of his building, the rattle of keys and the metallic 'shling' of a heavy door's mechanism giving way had rung in the hall.

Vladi emerged into the stairwell with nothing on him to spare his other neighbours the cartoonish body-horror that was his state of undress. Well, except for a pair of thankfully loose boxers – thank God.

He scratched his incomprehensibly huge, red beer gut, and looked damn surprised about still being able to breathe and walk at the same time. Snivelling, he rubbed his nose – the only thing rivalling his belly in terms of magnitude, sweat, and that particular shade of crimson.

He had the expression of someone freshly lobotomised and it was so sad! Yamato was almost, _almost_ able to produce empathy for Vladi, and he would have if it weren't for the heavy Vodka odours Vladi reeked of.

Yamato checked his phone watch.

Eleven A.M.

Either the man's been drinking since last night and forgot to stop, had booze for breakfast, or this was his natural state by now.

Whatever the case was, when Yamato went past him, Vladi latched on to his shoulder with his bloated fingers and stuttered, "blyat. Do you…need…help?"

"Not from you, mate," Yamato scratched. _'Fucking hell'_ \- talking hurt. Yamato may as well have had a chainsaw instead of vocal cords.

Behind Vladi's shoulder, inside his crummy apartment, a fly was chucking itself at a closed window. Somehow, it was symbolic of where Vladi's future was heading. And, to be fair, what Yamato felt was appropriate to do with his own right about now. His, however, was still salvageable while this bloke here, who was about Yamato's age, sported antics which were impressive on a Russian scale.

Taking the friendly approach for handling the situation, Yamato twirled Vladi around like the overweight keg of a ballerina he was and pushed. The bloke met the arm-rest of his sofa with his face and the encounter was accompanied by the unpleasant sound of marrow cracking, but not anything that could indicate a brain-damage potential.

' _Oh, well.'_

Yamato didn't have a lot of experience in decking people he _didn't_ want to hurt but he assumed he couldn't have trashed that bloke's attic area any worse.

By the time Yamato closed his door, Vladi was fast asleep on his thirty-year-old, used-to-belong-to-his-grandma, used-to-be orange sectional sofa in an instant, under the lulling melody of classic jazz music. He won't remember any of it by noon anyway and Yamato had most likely done Vladi's internal organs a major favour.

When he left the building, Yamato crossed the road straight to the bus station. Taking the Vespa may have been faster but, unlike Vladi, Yamato still had a grasp on what he should and shouldn't do after drinking. Besides, that thing was getting old. He should consider getting a normal motorcycle and be done with it.

He had his eyes on a smooth, blacker-than-Piedmon's-soul Harley-Davidson cruiser, but those octane-bingeing scraps of metal often cost more than their worth. They weren't even such good bikes. You paid for the reputation. Plus, he didn't have enough Lemmy Killmeister 'oomph' to pass as that type of exhaust-bursting, pipe-chugging biker. And – it was an uber-cliché.

' _Screw that! It's too sexy not to get.'_

Not much waiting was entailed before his far less sexy, public transport arrived. It sighed weary fumes and shuddered to a halt too far off the mark, making Yamato chase after it before boarding. In three minutes time, though, the racing views of a drive were passing by him in their dots-stretched-into-lines aesthetic, and he floated aimlessly through scenes of life.

Often, especially during bus rides, or when he had nothing else to do at a given moment but let his mind be unoccupied, Yamato loved observing streets. He loved seeing the faces of passers-by or the windows of stranger buildings and imagine himself walking inside the lives of other people as if they were body-gloves.

Were they happy? What did they like? Dislike? The uncomplicated beauty of pot flowers or the elaboration required for piecing a kimono? How were their rooms decorated? How did the pavement feel against their feet every time those stomped the earth? Did cold wind hurt their teeth? Did they enjoy sitting on the bench and listening to the laughter of playing children or did they still prefer claiming the swings for themselves – push off and see how far up they could reach when they used the momentum to jump?

Maybe they preferred staying at home altogether; closing the windows against the afternoon raucous and pretend the world of the playground below didn't exist in the first place.

Did they stop mid walk to look at green leaves and be amazed by photosynthesis? Or did they expect to find something greater, bigger, more amazing, or more bloody terrifying, than the enormity life is one day? Something more than who they were, somewhere out there?

What did they want?

Did they even know?

Give him enough time to dwell on it, and Yamato would start pondering on how he fit into this massive, beautiful, messy net of quagmire called being alive. Existing is such a unique and strange experience – impossible to share with others.

It just starts and then it ends.

He asked himself what he wanted to ask all the other mortals populating this green-blue planet to suffocation. One of those things everybody thinks or feels at least once, but no one talks about. Not out of spite; just 'cause he was honest to god curious.

' _Why are we so afraid to talk about our shit or farts? Why do people have the urge to hold it in all the time? Why are we distancing ourselves by rejecting what makes us most human instead of bonding over this single thing we all have in common? Is being human such a bad thing it's worth denying ourselves over?'_

Poop is an amazing thing. Every organic specimen dies and, through some process or another, turns into shit. It doesn't matter whether a person is some big-shot tycoon's CEO or a random hobo – as long as they have innards, they're the same. That's what humans _all_ are: big, stinking sacks of shit waiting to take their true form.

Death is indiscriminate and there is something comforting about it.

And if that's not remarkable, nothing is.

From Yamato's perspective, in humanities' endless mice-race into self-destruction, victory is not determined by reaching first place in whatever bullshit run someone puts you through.

It's determined by getting where you want to be at – your way.

It's also not about hitting the target everyone is aiming for, but about reaching the goal no one else can even see. Yamato didn't need, or want, to be first place in anything. Yamato wanted to be second to none – huge difference!

Because, in this mortal world, where no one chose to be born _into_ it but would still be ripped _out_ of it in a violent end; where the beginning and the finish of every person's tale are predetermined and everything falls to null – it's the _middle section_ which dictates whether the story was worth listening to or not. Whether it carved a mark.

On the grand scheme of things, the only purpose anything has is what attributed to it.

Still, this world is craving originality.

Speaking of which, some tired song was playing on the bus's radio. One of those tunes MTV tried to pass as rock music back when he was twelve and they all sounded the same back then as well.

' _Pop-punk: the "meh" heard around the world'._

D'Alembert's principle impacted Yamato hard when the bus halted near the familiar, blue gate. His body lurched forward and was thrust right back in a whiplash motion that damn near snapped his neck.

Doors hissing open, a woman in a yellow security vest mounted the vehicle for the usual, run-of-the-mill security theatre and dismounted it just as fast.

Now, some things sound bloody crackers when you hear them outside university context. The phrase "what aren't you getting? Why it's a box? Why it folds into itself or why it's crawling into its mother?" is one of them. Yamato had to drop by the physics lab to transfer the code rows he needed into his USB, and happened to hear that attempt at tutoring over in the hallway. He also once heard a fellow blonde pester their TA with "why isn't this circle a square?" during his Introduction to Electrical Circuits class. It was grand.

On the promenade, fresh undergraduates hiked after their altitude-challenged tour guide. Yamato always wondered about those people. Not the foreign students – the road guides. Other than the historical structures, museums avenues overlaid with history – can they _really_ show them how to look at this city? Show them properly? Or do they, too, need to change the way they look at things?

It's all about the angles.Things a person saw once, he'd not see again. Not as they were. He grows another eye and gets to see the world through a whole new set of neurons which curve to fit the many new angles needed to be seen.

Speaking of curves and angles, he noticed the university has, once again, added new isles and rooms in several buildings while others were either closed off or pulverized. The dean was altering and re-acclimating them for new purposes.

Seriously, his uni was like the titular construct in the film Cube – always changing rooms and full of people who were crunching numbers like their lives depended on it.

Yamato cut past the high traffic of students in the corridors and skidded along Lovalace's linoleum floors. Half a flight of stairs up, past the lecture theatre, and he slipped into the private computer farm where the more hardcore geniuses the faculty housed swotted over their personal projects. The ones they hoped would make a big exit and buy them a premium ticket into the top of the high-tech industry.

It was also where Koushiro, the one sorted person Yamato knew, let him in and left the door to lock automatically behind them.

Instead of greeting Koushiro like a normal person would, though, Yamato's puffy, red eyes did it for him.

"Yamato?"

The aforementioned hummed to indicate he was listening.

"How blunted are you?"

Yamato inhaled, stacking oxygen in his lungs. "So much that gravitation is a serious hazard for me, but not enough to prevent the sadness of my life from coming into question. Also, my rhetoric ability was reduced to contain only the f-word and portmanteaus with it for three hours straight last night. Let's say my sleeping was subpar and leave it at that."

It was things like this which reminded Koushiro why he preferred dealing with computers rather than humans. If Yamato were one, Koushiro'd just trouble-shoot him and fix the problem. Since he wasn't, Koushiro knew better than to prod further lest he learnt _too much_ and cracked his crest of knowledge in two. Besides, whenever a foul mood jumped Yamato, for whatever reason, it was wiser to give him space and let him fume in peace. Preferably, from a safe distance.

"All right. Then my first tip to you is a trick every programmer has to know: subscribe to the notion that Matlab can do anything and google the rest. It's a GGRKS situation."

If there is one thing to know about Matlab, is that it's a magical software conjured through dark sorcery. Within its power lies the ability to bestow upon its users anything ranging from anxiety attacks which put students under tables, sucking thumbs, to new heights of sexual pleasure and transcendent climaxes.

It wasn't hard to guess on which side of the spectrum Yamato was. Otherwise, he wouldn't need to borrow the boy-wonder's precious typing time.

Koushiro thought the thing was beautiful and was exulted.

Yamato thought Koushiro was barking mad and in need of a girlfriend constructed from organic materials. Still, Yamato geeked out with him; nothing wrong with Kou's technosexuality.

'Sides, Yamato may have liked getting smart with him, but that was only because Koushiro got more tail than both Yamato _and_ Taichi. See, Koushiro had what's called good future prospect, and when you're a uni student, that equated to girls _flocking_ to him. Husband material and all.

They were hunched over Koushiro's PiApple for a good five hours, and the only conclusion they were able to draw was that Yamato's brain was unwilling to supply him with intelligence today. Even the mighty Wolfram was unable to help him.

At the end of the day the job was done anyway. With his differential amount of understanding, Yamato managed giving the variables in the algorithm sensible names and disentangle his spaghetti code until he was at least halfway through the assignment. Since Koushiro was an angel, he also volunteered guiding Yamato through the second half – on top of his tuition.

The time passed between him pressing the space-bar and Enter was bridged by stealing Wi-Fi from the faculty for the purpose of watching funny online videos with Koushiro, and trying to be less cranky over everything else.

"So, what got you so sore, Yamato?"

"I told you – too much drinking last night and not enough sleeping this morning."

"Rubbish."

"Keep your smarts for Mimi."

Never in his entire life did Yamato witness anyone transforms into a tomato as efficiently as Koushiro did right now. It was a metamorphosis worthy of its own Wikipedia article. Blood swam around the genius boy's face so fast, Yamato made sure he had both Jyou _and_ Tentamon on call. Just in case.

"Let's not involve her…"

"Sorry, mate…" Yamato said and figured he had nothing to lose. "Say, has Taichi been weird lately?"

All semblance of bashfulness fled from Koushiro and he nodded his head with the understanding which sank in. "Oh, so _that's_ why you are sulking. Not more than usual. Why?"

As a whole, Yamato wasn't good with the entire problem sharing business. Even if it was Koushiro, who he trusted to be one of the few people who would listen, Yamato didn't like bothering others with his issues, period.

Especially regarding anything between him and Taichi. Taichi needed to be the first address for his complaints – not anyone else.

"I'm _not_ sulking."

"Totally sulking. I would tell you to not insult my mental acumen, but I respect your decision not to discuss whatever's on your mind. Just don't keep it bottled up inside for too long."

"Much the stickler for details you are. Judging from your experience with Oolong tea, I'll take your word for it."

Both bobbed their heads, laughing. It may not be such a bad day after all.

Heading out, Yamato went past the most distasteful attempt at balancing art and algebra for charity the human mind could possibly come up with. One which was also located _right in the middle_ of his uni and was the most prominent structure in the entire campus.

That _thing_ was an _horrific,_ metallic monument to the all mighty phallus which someone – who may as well been a walking experiment in artificial stupidity gone horribly right – erected according to the specific demands of someone _else_ who contributed this and that and his knob.

Said someone _else's_ own exams probably went tits up and he decided to show the surviving students his lingering sentiments towards them.

What's worse – the damn thing was creaking at them! Supposedly, it was meant to be a tall wind chime, designed to complement some mathematical formula, but that lame excuse didn't fool anyone.

Every time it moved, it screeched like nails on a chalkboard in hell or, continuing with the former, penis-heavy theme, like a hand drill screwing a lacquered concrete box full of shrapnel. And not fun sex – hate sex between ugly, greasy tools.

' _Got that image? Good. Now chock on it. Oh, and why greasy, you wonder? Why thank you for asking – because if they didn't oil up that abomination, it will sound like the rape version of the former allegories'._

Both the person who commissioned it and the person who authorised it had to be right nutters. Utterly crazy. And not fun crazy – someone who donates to universities had to be boring crazy. Like they had voices in their head and they were all snoring.

In the mood for being self-sustaining, Yamato walked his way home instead of relying on another bus ride.

His ringtone – composed of Taichi and Dai performing a drunken duet into an aubergine – went off. The younger Yagami sibling's name flashed across his phone's screen.

"Oi, Kar."

"All right? Is it a good time?"

"Stellar. On my way back from uni."

"Smashing. I want to offer you some easy-money work you will love me for."

"Moi?"

Listening to Yamato – or Takeru, but especially Yamato – peppering his language use, which was mostly fluent in Potty-Mouth, with French had always made Hikari giggle. Even when he cursed like it was no one's business. It was just like that bloke, from the shittiest instalment of the Matrix trilogy, said: "like wiping your ass with silk."

"Oui!"

"Details?"

"You know the café I work for?"

Yamato tried prying his brain cells, but decided he was far too spent for the day to dig up random trivia about his friends from his overcooked grey matter.

"Remind me?"

"Puzzle Café – down at the renovated side of the city. The basement used to house that weird cult that ate some guy's leg, remember?"

"Rings a bell. What about it?"

"My boss wants to throw a charity gig and is hiring some performance artists. He's willing to pay! Like they do in the west! The money isn't much but you'll be saving a few puppies from the pound. You up for it?"

Yamato intended to pull more specifics out of her, but his attention was detained by one of the usual things that happened when he was busy planning his time instead of partaking in it.

"Hika, give me a mo. I'll give you a ringer, all right?"

He hung up on her and monitored the two cars entering the intersection faster than was recommended and nowhere near as safe.

He could see it coming. He really _could_ see it coming: the trajectories of the two vehicles which set them on a collision course, the kinetic energy fuelling the velocity which would determine the afterimage of the brutal interaction, and the friction which was going to do jack-shit to slow anything down.

It was all there – just like in the books; the most fatal problem in dynamic, classical mechanics Yamato had ever seen. Steeling himself for the impact was the only thing left for him to do before he witnessed it being solved.

Like a cameraman, he observed everything in real-time, trying to frame all the important details about the central figures in this narrative before there was nothing left of them. Behind the darkened glass of the Skoda, the face of one driver transformed when he began to understand. A plethora of expressions ranging from shock, to terror, to indignant acceptance of what he could no longer escape. Of what the end was.

The other driver was too bogged down with trying to chew off another bite of his soggy sandwich to care about stirring the wheel. His tongue darted past his yellow, mustered-stained teeth to lick whatever slushy sauce escaped his maw. He wouldn't understand what happened until the people diploid to clean up the bloody mess exfoliated baloney off his slabby, mangled cheek with a spatula.

'What _is_ _the job title of these people? How do you apply for that? As in, what are the requirements –_

 _what does the resume have to read? "Shitty people skills"? "Wishing everyone was dead"? "Lost will to live"?'_

Yamato saw _all of it_ going to happen.

Happening.

Happened.

Right in his face. Yet, there was not a thing he could have done about it. It was so screwy and shit-bat crazy. Life can be blinked away, just like that.

' _If Garurumon was here…'_ but he _wasn't_.

So Yamato did what came most natural to him and laughed like a complete maniac. He couldn't help it! It was hilarious! It felt so mundane – but in that funny way dreams tend to be sometimes; when everything about it is demented in every which way but it still feels normal within the framework of the dream. That is, until you wake up and have to wonder just how damaged are you and whether or not something is defected with your right and left lobes.

Shit. He was probably, _very_ not humorously, desensitized.

When he snapped out of it, he followed the more sensible act and dialled the number for the emergency line. It was bloody difficult listening to the phone. The entire street raged with the frantic honking of pillocks, of screaming, along with scraps of metal and molten plastic scattering haphazardlyon the burning asphalt.

"Oi?" Asked the woman on the line.

Yamato dictated to her the details of the mayhem around him and the location where it all went down. And what did she do with that little slice of crucial info? She started chatting him up! And it's not like she had anything astute to contribute to the conversation either. Nope, everything coming out of her was about as bright as a black hole and twice as dense.

"Lady, please just get the bloody medical team here!"

"The emergency?"

"No, I just thought it would be wicked fun to make the ambulance go vioo-vioo, you daft cow!"

He had to stay on the line with her to make sure she did her bleeping job! Being responsible is a thankless work.

But from now on there was nothing for him to do except plug in his mp3 and rock his head to Primus' Anti-Pop and Les Claypool's crazy, totally unfair, bass slapping.

The funny part is how, in an hour or so, all sorts of news crews will get here to report the incident and ham it up for better publicity. Charges will be filed, committees will be formed, fingers will be pointed, someone will get money under the desk, no lesson will be learnt because life isn't the fucking Barney the Dinosaur show, and nothing will get fixed. But in twenty-four hours – the momentum would be gone, no one would remember what happened here and everyone would move on to the next atrocity.

' _As species, we are really not cut out to comprehend this.'_

He texted Dasha, telling her to rile up the troops for a potential gig and schedule doubled band rehearsals before returning Hikari a ring.

"Heya! Is everything all right?"

Yamato ignored the question. "So, do we simply go up there and jam some songs or…"

"Well," she fumbled with the way she was about to phrase her answer, "my boss had this Romantic Gateway themed evening in mind. To attract younger age groups."

"We don't really do the whole romantic tosh, Hika."

"Hey, you're a student. You can use the pocket money and, commercially speaking, it's a good chance to attract a new crowd."

"I like my old crowd just fine."

"But puppies, Yamato. Puppies. And chocolate milk."

"I don't fancy sweets."

"Puppies."

"I'll do it for you."

"Puppies."

"…Puppies."

"You're the best!"

"But it's gonna be a cover night and I decide what passes as a love song."

"Within the hearing capacity of a mainstream-music listener."

"Fair enough."

"Yes! Ta!"

"See you, then."

"Bye."

"Au revoir."

When he hung up, Yamato had something to tell Yuri about. Though at this point it was less a booty-call and something more akin to a date. ' _Bahhh'_ Just having that last word in his skull left a bad after-taste in his mouth.

At least Yamato was always in a good mood after a gig – it'd be easier for him to go along with whatever happened.

' _Easier to_ _ **swallow,**_ _if anything.'_

So he sent Yuri his answer, detailing the time and location Yamato would be available for getting screwed quickly and in uncomfortable places, and stomped straight home like he was on a death roll.

This was some fucked up day and a fucked up day required some fucked up literature. That, and treating his eyeballs to some new art.

Any school-related possession was abandoned; tossed into his room with the likes of a sack of potatoes that didn't get a single look back from him.

He replaced them with the flick-knife from his desk – his much-beloved gift from Taichi. Then he climbed to the above floor, taking the stairs three at the time with the grace of a hippopotamus performing 'Swan Lake'.

Upstairs, he grabbed his new read from the library. Next thing happening – he was _so_ grateful to be curled up on the comfy sofa, he was ready to thank the bloody Academy. His muscles lost tension like a piece of hammered meat before cooking.

He reached for his copy of Naked Lunch and spent a while attempting to work out what William. tried telling him. Anything other than to double the load of his drug-stash, anyway. Also anything which didn't involve doing something inexplicable and inappropriate with a pineapple – and not even the automatic association one may have with that sentence.

Yamato read a lot. Thing is, because he read a lot, he started noticing just how much of what most authors pen down is all the same and formulaic as F.

Frequently, they all use the same old terms. Maybe those were unique when first used, but they became trite over time. Terms like "mortal coil" or "companionable silence" for example.

Those were phenomenal terms. Really bloody astonishing and all – but after reading the same line ten thousand times in twenty thousand different literary pieces, it gets fucking boring. It's not like that pet-peeve of his will make Yamato dislike a work, but he will find himself wondering why couldn't the writer have made one more itsy-bitsy push towards something new.

Few offer something original and they are the ones who make a difference. Everyone else swoops in and copies them, whether intentionally or not.

That, however, could not be said about Lewis Carroll or Burroughs. They were bozos on that bus and a bit mad there, weren't they?

Thing is, the only way to understand non-linear writing is to make your mind non-linear.

After draping the windows, Yamato reached into his pocket and picked up some leftover rolling papers. He opened the small baggy he kept safe between the hardcover of the book and its pages, chopped the leaves into crumbs and rolled the skunk with surgical precision.

It was the real strand of skunk – not just the generic name for weed tossed around in the street. This was the real thing.

He lit up the crumpled end and stuck the fat tube between his lips, taking a long drag into his passages. Flicking his thumb against the joint in a single, trained motion, he let the excess ashes scatter on the floor. He'd clean it up later.

He reduced the spliff to its filter, smoking till the pungent flavour near the folded cardboard accordion made all his sinuses flare open and his tongue went numb.

Along with the last hit he took a small, green apple. Its fleshy peel was as smooth as a baby's backside and Yamato wondered if it's always been like that or if this frictionless perfection applies only to this brand in particular.

He was sliding on the lines of linearity to the graph of an exponential function, to a logarithmic one, and soon he'd aspire to find apotheosis in a zero while being limited only by infinity.

His thoughts stacked, becoming superimposed, and stretced into a matrix. Everything became slow and everything was a concave.

Yamato was overwhelmed by ideas and thoughts. He was amazed by the aesthetics of words and wanted to own all of them. He had Hibiscuses growing from two symmetrical spots at the base of his head. Where is the song coming from? The music is everywhere and all Yamato had to do was tune in. Be a receiver. Better yet – be a transmitter. Oh, colours! That colour blue was beautiful. It was hilarious.

He started thinking about Taichi and got himself chock-full with sour sentiments.

He started thinking about his mother, who wasn't there, and the father who wasn't _really_ there. Didn't peruse that activity for too long, though. As soon as the thought floated into his consciousness he concluded it's a mighty stupid one and that analysing his life through Freudian bullcrap _now_ will be at least ten years overdue.

Yamato was a big boy now, with big boy's responsibilities. No point in doing the rounds of blaming his parents for every single detail which went wrong in his personality since the divorce.

It messing him up was an irrefutable fact. Didn't mean he didn't move on. He mostly got over that and forgave them both. He _loved_ them both. He even annually made his mother bonbons now. On the long run, the way things ended up being was far better than listening to them argue to kingdom come and forcing him to be the actual adult in the house who watched over Takeru.

He _still_ does his brotherly duty; never lets Takeru, or Hikari, smoke with him. Only after they'd hit their twenties and their brains finished developing.

No, the spectacular success of shaping him into a cluster-fuck of incomprehensible, incomparable hip of trash was all his and he was bloody proud of that too.

By the age of twenty, it was safe to say many variables had a chance to screw his life over and turn him into the misfit Yamato Ishida was. The responsibility of putting things straight was his alone.

That's how the world works. Actually – no, that's how the _universe_ works. Our universe anyway. It's a dynamic system prone to Chaos and too many trajectories shoot up into unexpected patterns which can go and fuck everything over for someone.

No one can tell how they got here, or there – or wherever – and solve the problem from its base. There was no point in pointing fingers.

Yes. Chaos _._ Not the dictionary synonym for disorder – but the fantastic, physical phenomenon. What happens when even a small decision – what shirt to wear, what rubber to use, or whether or not to stay that one extra hour in university to finish a project – can lead down an unexpected path or take an unexpected route.

When a person later looks back on that decision, from some distant point in the future, and wonders how life would have been like had that specific decision had not been made. Or have been executed somehow differently.

When a tiny drop can mount into a tidal wave.

" _When the present determines the future but the approximate present doesn't approximately determine the future…"_ is how it was explained to him.

The present will pour into the future incandescently and exactly as it was ordained through predetermined conditions when the universe was still young, way back when. When it only came to be in a bath of liquid inferno. And the present is a predetermined echo of the past where people's every action or decision had been set in stone before they were even born and what they call "free will" is a self-serving delusion. Theoretically.

Yamato liked Chaos. Of the many principals which frequented most clashes between mathematics and physics and put them at odds against each other, it was by far his favourite.

The idea that it was a solid aspect in the universe which stemmed from the tiniest sensitivity but stirred physical happenings on an astronomical scale, that it was non-linear and defied any analytical approach – those things were something Yamato was enamoured with.

The fact that, in mathematical terms, Chaos was fully deterministic but, in reality, thrashed those rigourous rules as if there was nothing to it, was like seeing punk music become a principle upon which existence hung.

It was so beautiful, Yamato wanted to let it buy him flowers and screw his sphincter gently – yet firmly.

' _Chaos…'_

As far as he knew, it was the flap of butterfly wings in Shanghai that caused the storm which opened the digital gate here for the first time.

And everything about it sits so well in quantum physics. In a crude nutshell, quantum physics tells how: A) all things which have interacted are forever connected and, B) according to that doctrine, _observation_ creates reality.

A decent example for case A will be how Gabumon's decisions in the Digital World can influence whatever happens to Yamato here. Yamato's wanking in his room can instantly affect Taichi's wanking in some other place – hopefully in his room. All seemingly at random.

Strictly speaking, quantum physics is applicable to tiny objects – tinier than was imagined, but its effects and conclusions reverberate all throughout.

Yamato could just hear the electrons wheezing by – though that can also be a side effect of the skunk.

The part B is a bit trickier to explain.

Things will happen as they need to due to the reactions of atoms which started billions of years ago and are echoing into the present. In turn, the present projects into the future.

But, so far, that flow is impossible for anyone to recognize.Schrödinger equation predicts what the probability distributions are, but cannot predict the exact result of each measurement. There is no way to know how particles will further be arranged, where will they go, or the position they will be in, because they have no exactly determined properties. Only a probability to be this or that. No, not even a probability – a probability of amplitudes.

It's not until the brains in lab coats try measuring and observing them that those particles "start being". For that short while. Otherwise, those wee atoms, electrons, and all other specks of reality just sorta fuck around and do whatever it is they do when no one's watching.

It's like having an unhatched Digiegg. Up until the moment it hatches, it's impossible to know what kind of Digimon exists inside and as such, it could be _any_ Digimon with equal probability. In the language of quantum physics – it can be said that until the egg hatches and we see what lies inside, it contains _all_ the Digimons simultaneously. That is the super-positioned quantum state – things are both "are" and "are not" until we see them. As an extension of this, there is no way to know where the future will go. No one knows how much free will exists. _True_ knowledge of anything is, possibly, impossible to come by.

From where Yamato was sitting, knowledge was possibly true, possibly untrue, or unable to be known.All three together, at the same time.

' _Possibly impossible?"_ He deserved a goody-bag for coming up with that.

Even the simple logic behind cause and effect is not so black and white.

' _And Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle be praised!'_

Another mind-fucking principle that is – and for some reason, it just works. In short, it states that even knowing the accurate position of a particle, its energy, or spin, doesn't guarantee knowing its route or final destination and vice versa. The more precisely a person can learn about a particle's aspect – the less precisely a different aspect can be known.

And here it goes back to Chaos. In order to solve questions in physics, one must know the initial conditions – how things were at the beginning of the problem. But there is no way to know the accurate initial conditions of any situation, now is there? Not really, _really_ know.

Even if there were, the tiniest change can evoke millions of diverging outcomes and throw the system off kilter and into the magical land of WTF.

' _The implication of that state is that we can't have the full grasp of reality. Things will sometimes happen with seemingly no explanation. Only that there is one – but who knows where._ _It's likely – or unlikely- there is no way to_ _know anything. But most importantly -_ all possibilities, all situations, all contradictions, all solutions, and absolutely everything exists in the same time __ _with varying degrees of probability._ __ _At least until someone will finally open that black box, or crack that Digiegg, and do us the courtesy of telling the truth of all things. But till then, we don't know and the unknown contains infinite possibilities'._

The best thing about this convoluted science is that, as simple as the notations which describe those phenomena are, the universe seems to be bending out of its way to fit this agenda.

So, a young and aspiring physicist such as Yamato learns as much, and two conclusions often follow:

1) The more you learn, the more you realise you don't know anything. That's why people who learn a lot and ask many questions become less inclined to view things monochromatically and choose to sit on the fence of ambivalence.

2) Let your mind become elastic and accept there is a place for all possible truths to coexist. There are no absolutes; no good, no evil, no moral or immoral, no true or untrue – they are all man-made and interoperable. Therefore, everything can happen. You can be everything. Because when we realise those are our minds and our perceptions we get to shape and bend – reality begins to change. Even if it's fixed.

One has to understand: there is no problem. Only being. Nothing you think that matters, matters.

It's like that short story he read once. He didn't remember where he picked it up from, but it was called "Fresh Eyes: The Evolution of Vision". Its premise was an analogy to evolution where a creature evolves from its primordial state by having all its previous stages opening new eyes and realising there was more to the world than what was anticipated.

That alone is a reason to go on living. This game of not-actually-chance which makes the best days in life happen when they are least expected. What makes a person look around the corner for the next best damn thing.

' _Fundamentally meaningless as existence is, it's so beautiful - how all those things are connected. Us too, simple humans, are connected to this gargantuan, magnificent and terrifying universe. To all the multi-universes. That we are a universe in our own right as well. How insignificant we are on the grand scheme of things but, according to Newton's third, still we affect it and let it affect us. How everything is one. Everything is plenty. One is everything. Everything is beautiful.'_

Somewhere along the line he began contemplating the string theory with its vibrating ball–dimensions, and the rest of its eleven, or twenty-six, space-time dimensions with quantum gravity. Then he decided not to. It was so silly sometimes and if he'd start thinking about vibrating balls, it'd be the _only_ thing he'd end up doing.

Yamato picked up physics, in part, because he wanted to learn enough to understand how the Digital World worked. He figured many people pick up science-orientated subjects because they think they'd find answers.

They're wrong.

In all likelihood, and if they had good teachers, they would have ten times more questions than whatever many they had when they entered the field.

"The more you know, the less you understand" is like the motto of this subject. There are no absolutes.

' _Not that it's a bad thing. The moment we stop being curious about what's around us and don't go asking questions – we die'_

Now Yamato was getting in the mood for treating his ear-drums to some good noise.

He turned on the old telly. It was one of those ancient boxes with aerials which his dad kept around since about the time Judas Priest became a thing – probably for that sentimental reason exactly. His dad was a bit of a hoarder, really. The fact it even worked was a technological miracle.

The machine hadn't received transmissions for years, of course, and had nothing on it but snow and the hum of statics, but that's why Yamato liked it so much.

One percent of this white noise on screen was a residue from the Big Bang which still resonated into the present. Yamato could listen to it forever. Mind-twisting, inni't? It's like he was lifted and stretched through both sides of infinity in parallel.

He and the lads from the band even had a song they recorded using it in the background.

Yamato considered rolling another joint, but decided against it. There is only so much his homoeostasis can do for him before it went on a permanent leave and left him to die. Keeping a straight head while answering his father's tri-weekly phone call, which was due in a couple of hours, was what tipped the scales, though.

Instead, in an attempt to make sense of the borderline mess which was all him, he took out his harmonica along with an acoustic Ibanez guitar, and climbed to the terrace on the roof.

Between the solar plate and the boiler he had a slim view of the sea and its indigo waves as they curled and crashed into a foamy lather on the sand.

He stared down at the wide expanse of the tight concrete belt, sporadically tinctured with blues, greens, overpasses, and unimportance, which was his decaying city.

The sun was suspended just over the water line, igniting the skyline and burning his retinas.

From below, his solitude was broken only by the rumble of an intermittently passing car and the flashes of its metal in the dying sunlight.

It was still DEAD-degrees outside, of course, and high time someone held a funeral for the weather. Oh, well. A Viking saying goes: "better burn in flames than perish in the ashes".

The fingers of his left hand found position on the B Minor cord while those on the right began strumming the intro for "Properly Paranoid _"._

It was one of the first pieces the Knives recorded in their current formation – right after Yutaka, Yamato's former guitarist, left to study abroad. It was a couple of months after he, Taichi, and the rest of the Chosen returned from the Digital World and it was precisely what he needed.

Naturally, it was also one of his favourites.

He and Dasha wrote the song when they were sober, but he liked singing it when he was the opposite of. The music escalated and he sang to himself:

" **I am the conspiracy theorist**

 **Who's shit outta luck.**

 **I am the man in the press**

 **Who still gives a fuck.**

 **I am the dream-walker**

 **Feeling too deserving of joy to care.**

 **I am the bliss**

 **Of a world unaware.**

 **I am the comedian**

 **Who just lost his plot.**

 **Honestly, you guys,**

 **I'm just your everyday knob.**

 **Is the human condition irrevocably intertwined with the feeling of emptiness? Of entitlement? Of loss?**

 **I wonder – what do I want?**

 **But everyone are just selling you a revised, censored version of human existence,**

 **Meant to distract you so you won't get outta line when they programme** **you**

 **To be a one tracked mind android.**

 **So how can you blame me for being properly paranoid?"**

Dasha usually recited the choruses; the poet with the bite of an angry Pitbull.

" **The man in the suit,**

 **He declared martial law.**

" **We can't worry about civil rights,**

 **We gotta fight a war!"**

 **And all the rebel-rousing white knights**

 **On the other side of the bench**

 **Who claim they do what they do**

 **To protect the good of land**

 **Well, they get their funds**

 **From that other country**

 **That just wanna drop the bomb**

 **On your head.**

 **Both sides want us inside a formulated array of little cubical structures, watching shiny, isolated boxes with little cookie-cutter cutouts of square-shaped people, not asking, reproducing the same old.**

 **Escapism for the misinformed and uninformed. I am the lack of vital words of the entire screaming world.**

 **I want outside. I want to open the gate. I want the truth. I want the dream of perfect circles.**

 **So how can you blame me for being properly paranoid?**

 **Left, right, left, right,**

 **Commies, socialists, capitalists,**

 **Other -ists,**

 **Riddle me this:**

 **Why do you think**

 **An arbitrary dichotomy**

 **Meant to simplify and dilute the complexity of 'Being'**

 **Will somehow beget the correct way of how things should be?**

 **And now all the burnouts take a knee in prayer**

 **Please…just…stop**

 **I don't think there is any absentee parental figure up there**

 **But if there is, it sure as shit doesn't care.**

 **Why doesn't anyone ask "why?"?**

 **The fastest route between two dots is not a straight line, but a Brachistochrone curve.**

 **God disapproves the existence of God.**

 **What is the relationship between language and time?**

 **Everybody wants peace in our time, but time is a direction,**

 **How can there be peace on earth before we come to peace within us, with our humanity – inside?**

 **Understand, the world owes us nothing.**

 **It was here before and will be long after we've all been wiped from existence.**

 **So you have to start creating with your hands.**

 **Start the fire.**

 **Start something.**

 **Start anything.**

 **Start everything**

 **Use everything you have;**

 **Stay hungry, feel, keep asking, think.**

 **And no one could take these away from you - that which is truly yours.**

 **Even if all our energies will be converted into entropy, appreciate every moment.**

 **Because in truth, we were given so much and just being alive is the most amazing thing.**

 **Because from a physicist's stand point, we cannot know anything and all the boxes are open. So are the doors.**

 **So be properly paranoid and just do it.**

 **Regret**

 **nothing."**

If they were on stage now, they'd be brewing some sick, electro-psychedelic rifts with tasty guitar solos during the mid-section and part singing-part narrating the last verse all together.

No matter how many times they performed it, each time something had been ignited in the eyes of the spectators. The rusty wheels began turning and clicking and K.O.D liberated people from themselves.

Yamato loved writing. He loved the play of syllables and consonants when they came together and formed communication. Loved how every letter had its own colour and when they were placed together, it was like splashing acrylics on a canvas. And every word had to be exact, accurate, and polished because even words with identical meanings could draw an entirely different picture; could be as far removed on his taste glands as sweet from sour.

Sweet and sour – just like the things Taichi said to him after the rave.

Some of Yamato's anxiety left him.

If he were where Taichi is at right now, he'd want everyone to leave him the fuck alone so he could slosh around in his own misery till he figured it out. Then he'd know what he was fucking talking about when he finally fancied sharing. When people ask Yamato if he's all right three times a day, it doesn't make him feel they care for him so much as that they just don't want him to go mental on someone. Like he was expected to behave like this or like that or be a certain way when he just didn't fucking want to. Even his friends don't always get it and he'd feel guilty for making them worry.

It's not even so much a "if" as a "when". Think about every single time you had to visit a public shithouse with some agro lady wearing sand-paper knickers and her hollering, 3 year-old hellhound of a child knocking your door down 'cause they reckon your turds would come out faster if they do. The difference being that Yamato's side still had that dull taste of residues from his antisocial, pre-pubescent angst era and the resulting sense of superiority which, really, would get just about anyone pessimistic about the fate of humanity in the world. Sometimes, a man just wants to do his shit at his own pace, yeah? That's the lesson-learnt here.

Afterwards, you can call up your mates to help you clean up.

So there's a decent chance this is how Taichi's like right now. If he isn't saying anything, it's because he doesn't know what to say, and if being his best friend meant to lay off, Yamato would lay off. Simple. Don't bottle things till you explode is decent advice which Yamato would advocate from experience. Friends who know you're a mess and still want to stick by you are a brilliant treasure. But that doesn't mean a therapy group needs to be called into session every single time life isn't 100% orgasmic. It's all right to sometimes want to do things alone and take your time doing them. It's also all right not to be happy.

Taichi already said they'd talk, which meant he hasn't gone off his trolley. He just needed to work out _what_ he wanted to say, Yamato reckoned. Bugging him now will just make Yamato a dick. If Taichi says he'll do something –he'll do it. He was the type of glorious bastard who would plough through obstacles, head first, the moment he had a goal.

There was a reason why Taichi was Yamato's blud. There is a reason why he trusted Taichi implicitly and with his life. They never gave up on each other. They always keep coming back for one another.

This is one thing Yamato was certain about.

During the last time Taichi had this kind of emotional-flu seizure, he and Yamato pulled each other out of the funk by relying on the other's perpetual support. Bulldozing and pressuring Taichi doesn't have to be the solution for every problem.

Taichi would take his time, he would relax, he would find himself, he would talk to Yamato when he's ready, and maybe untwisting his knickers would aid in reverting him back to that helpful, optimistic, unconquerable self he should be. And maybe not and Yamato would deal with it and love him still.

Either way, Yamato would show him Taichi wasn't the only one pulling some work. Since he had that disproportional snapping at Taichi last Friday, Yamato decided he didn't want to continue getting livid over every obnoxious piece of rubbish. No matter how comfortable he was with Taichi. Maybe then Taichi won't practically break through his walls to get away from him when that arse got the moodies.

Fuck, Yamato couldn't believe how much he was fretting over him! What a twonk!


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13: If the World Should Break in Two, Until the Very End of Me, Until the Very End of You - Rather Live Out a Lie Than Live Wondering How the Fire Feels While Burning.

Scented, red candles were stationed in the middle of the small tables in Puzzle Café, filling the place with acrid strings of smoke and a part-industrialised, part-sweetened smell. The windows were covered with dark, cheap-looking Gauze fabric instead of drapes. On the sofas which lined the back wall, someone threw afghans and embroidered pillows which attributed a sense of anachronism to the entire room.

If anyone asked for Yamato's opinion, he'd say the place had more in common with a whore house for the elderly, located in unkempt suburbia, than with the 'Romantic Gateway Island' amidst the city's urban chic it was supposed to be.

No one asked for Yamato's opinion, though, and it's not like he was some expert on home décor. He was a humble entertainer who was currently tuning his bass and getting the distortion pedals in order.

Periodically, he examined the main entrance, checking if Yuri was already here. Also, whether or not Taichi would be there.

The phone-talks between him and Taichi were still a thing that happened almost every other day, but the content of the conversations themselves was hollow. They were just going through the motions till they hung up. The talks weren't strained per-say, but they were so impersonal the two boys were one step away from commenting on the weather and it was _so_ distracting. All the while, Taichi was nowhere near volunteering information regarding the twist in his knickers.

Yes, this was impressively screwed up.

Of course, Yamato would have this weirdness every bloody day over not having Taichi in his life at all, but that didn't mean he wasn't allowed to be sore about it. He extended Taichi an invitation to this mini-gig, as per tradition, and pretended he didn't care if Taichi'd come or not.

When Takeru showed up in his field of view, Yamato lifted his gaze to meet a distressed face – or rather, a face weirded out by something.

"What's on your mind, Mini-Me?"

Takeru pointed behind his back with a sticking thumb. "Some tall bloke's been asking about you. You know what's it all at?"

Yamato did a 270 degrees survey in search for the suspect and found Yuri, who was reclined against a floral armrest and tried to blend in with the tapestry. He looked a bit like his Fight-or-Flight mechanism got jammed in the middle and got him stuck.

Yamato neutralized his expression and adjusted the necklace around his neck.

That thin, silver chain was a particular favourite of his. Nothing fancy about it, but Taichi gave it to him. It was right after Yamato came out to him about how his libido wasn't a female-only access one. On the surface, it was meant to mock Yamato a bit; call him a sausage-jockey. But what it really meant, was that Taichi was happy for him, proud of him, and would always stay by him.

Always.

Of course the part Yamato omitted was the one where he admitted to be attracted to men because the term 'men' should have been replaced with the term 'Taichi'. He was bloody aware his love of Taichi didn't stem from his love of men, but from his love of everything Taichi was and everything he meant to him. It was recursive. He loved Taichi for Taichi, and despite what he let his other friends think, his sexuality was very narrow and single-targeted.

' _And now look at me being a heap of symbol-minded rubbish.'_

Yamato re-situated Cheri Bomb in her stand and got up to greet his first guest.

When he saw him approaching, Yuri's lips split from each other behind a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. Dislodging that blasted arm-rest from his arse couldn't have come sooner.

He let both his hands fall into the slight curve outlining Yamato's waist and kissed Yamato's cheek.

Takeru grew confusion on his face faster than Patamon could say 'air shot'. Not because someone tried fondling his brother. No, that happened on an average of some triple-digit number per every concert. It was because Yamato _let_ him that Takeru needed his jaw scraped off the floor.

"Teeks, this is Yuri, my date." Yamato turned to said date, "didn't know you wear glasses."

Yuri ran a hand through his sandy hair. "I wear contacts for games or when I go out. Broken glass in my eyeball isn't all that high on my to-do list."

"It suits you."

Takeru lost them right after the introduction due to the alarms going on and off inside his skull. His eyes flew to intersect those of his brother's but Yamato was not looking at him at all.

Sure, Yamato had the potential to be a phenomenal flirt – it runs in the family – but he didn't live up to it and he didn't _do_ dates.

Yamato was the kind of person who could go out at night and wouldn't care who he got back home with. He could disappear to god knows where for god knows how long and return with lipstick stains and used knickers from god knows who. His body could have a scribbling saying "for rent" with a sharpie where a tramp stamp should be.

Takeru didn't know if his brother physically did any of those – but _theoretically_ he _could_ have done them. He had it in him.

What he _didn't_ have in him was a sense for romance. It wasn't worth it in his book.

So he didn't do dates! Not ones he cared to introduce to his family, anyway.

" **The world was on fire and no one could save me but you  
it's strange what desire will make foolish people do  
I'd never dreamed that I'd love somebody like you  
and I'd never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you**

 **No I don't want to fall in love - this world is only gonna break your heart.  
No I don't want to fall in love -this world is only gonna break your heart.  
With you - this world is only gonna break your heart.  
With you - this world is only gonna break your heart.**

 **No I - this world is only gonna break your heart.**

 **Nobody…**

 **Loves…**

 **No one"**

The voice seeping through the red windows of Puzzle Café, deep and textured with melancholy, was one Taichi was familiar with and loved listening to so much when it was forming things of this type.

It was so much like Yamato to pick a song like this. Perfect tempo to get his audience into a frisky mood yet at the same time – inlaid with profound and pensive undertones.

Taichi ushered Anna through a vintage-y entryway which's been decorated with rich arabesques, and into his sister's work-place.

There, he secured the girl's thin shoulders under his arm. She was blonde and tall and thin and soft to the touch. She was also very well endowed where it mattered most and had the most beautiful pair of jade eyes.

She always had a kind expression she was willing to share with everyone, and, more than anything, she specifically _wasn't_ Yamato. For starters, she smiled way too much. That was the problem – she… no… no… no, no. That was a _good_ thing. Yamato was such a grouch half the time. He didn't smile enough at all. Taichi was kinda special that way – only he got to see Yamato's wild medley of dumb faces.

Was this stupid? Uh-uh, yap. Should Taichi find a more constructive solution than dragging an innocent girl into this? Probably. Is he going to listen to his own common sense? Nope.

He heard the Knives' vocalist before he saw him: "that number was Wicked Game by Chris Isaak. We'll now take a short break and be back again, for your pleasure, in ten minutes. Don't forget to pump up on more caffeine and tip your waiters."

Yamato evacuated the stage, escorted by loud applause, energetic claps and amorous eyes. Taichi couldn't help the smile dropping into his face, or the excitement which caused his small intestine to constrict, release, and repeat the cycle. Yamato looked as nice as was expected of him, with his old, flannel shirt hanging open and loose over a muscle-fit top, complimented by the necklace Taichi gave him once.

Having this kind of cheap, humpy-bumpy-heart reactions to Yamato, though, was too awkward for words and Taichi needed it to stop already.

He held what's-her-face a bit closer to his torso, like she was some makeshift human shield, and tried wriggling through the maze of chairs with her.

That endeavour passed without a hitch, with the exception of Taichi bumping into one poor sod and making him spit out his mocha drink in a fit of chocked up coughs.

When he looked up again, after having apologised and made sure the geezer wouldn't die on him, it took him a moment to process the scene here and try explaining to himself why Yuri was there.

More than that – why was he flirting with Yamato in front of fucking everyine? Mooning around him? Pushing hair out of Yamato's face with the back of his fingers? Why did Yuri call him cute or put his hands on Yamato's waist to pull them closer together? Why did he have to give him that small peck on the lips?

No words could describe what seeing that did to Taichi. Something horrible was happening to his heart. He never saw Yamato, who had low tolerance for being touched, allowing to be shown public affection. In the rave, yes, because he was drunk and horny, but… Taichi never saw him acting like _this_. This docile and this… _this_ … Yamato wasn't someone who held back! And being touched made him feel like having hands shoved into his soul. So why-

It was Takeru faking a scandalized gasp which broke Taichi's from whatever trance possessing him. "Oh, look Yuri! You made him blush."

He pinched his brother's cheek and Yamato slapped it away, folding his arms over his chest. But even under the dusky yellow of candlelight, Taichi detected the abnormal shade of peach blooming against Yamato's fair complexion.

With Anna in the crook of his elbow, Taichi inserted them into the circle of men.

"Halo!"

Three easy smiles greeted him, but Taichi only cared for one. He measured everything about it, making sure it was up to his standards. Making sure it was not just on Yamato's lips but inside his eyes as well. It was – so Taichi became sunny again.

Nothing about this was fair, though.

"Who's the pretty half, mate?"

"Yuri! One weekend off and you forgot all about your gorgeous captain?! Am I so insignificant to you?!"

They all laughed and Anna punched Taichi's arm playfully, pushing her generous boobs to his chest till the areola of her nipple almost slipped out of her tight tank top.

"My people – this is Anna. We met after a game once. Anna – this is Yamato, my blud and the main attraction here. Takeru, his brother and free-lance publicist, and Yuri, from the team. You should know him."

She shook hands with all the men present. One by one, the males gave her the most diplomatic lift-gazes they could generate, trying to reconcile the prospect of not looking like pigs with enjoying what she had to show. They raked their eyeballs from the first floor at her high heels and all the way up to the penthouse with its nice balcony.

While they were at it, Taichi's pupils roamed along Yamato's high cheek bones and drifted to the little candle flames flickering in the cobalt blue.

When Yamato moved a bit, Taichi's line of sight went over his shoulder. There, he found Dasha, sitting on the low stage and dangling her legs over the ledge, one after the other, like a little nipper in a theme park. When Taichi noticed her, she gave him her patented, semi-psychotic, bug-like stare. Then, she grinned and saluted him as if he was the last admiral in the navy.

Since he failed coming up with a better response, he saluted back at her.

From the conversation which followed, Yuri noticed her too, apparently. According to him, she's been staring at him since the moment he popped in through the door and she tried not to blink at all. As a counter measure, he tried avoiding her completely.

"Where did you find her?" Yuri asked Yamato while attempting to take cover behind the protein-based bush growing out of his captain's scalp.

Taichi was very amused. He sat with the band behind the stage plenty enough times to almost get used to her.

"On a bench. In a park. Near my house," Yamato said as though he was asked about his soap brand of choice or the bus schedule. "She followed me home like a mangy mongrel. We philosophized for five hours about the pros and cons of positivism over green tea and a bloke of cheddar dipped in pizza sauce. I offered her tequila and she said she doesn't drink. Next thing I know we are in a band together after Yutaka moved out."

"So, basically, you don't know what her deal is either?"

"Nope. She's like a sausage – I don't want to know what she's made of."

Anna chuckled politely and excused herself to "nip to the loo" even more politely.

All male gazes followed her retreating hindquarters, which shook _very_ prettily, in a way which had nothing to do with politeness.

Then all three glided back to Taichi with an assortment of typical expressions. Yuri wore an amused sort of sympathetic camaraderie. Takeru was looking for Hikari.

"Look at the side profile on that one." Yamato had the left corner of his lips tugged into a smirk to accommodate his commentary. "She has a nice rack, Taichi. You have a good taste."

They all chimed some form of agreement in an androgen-fuelled unison before Yuri murmured down Yamato's ear, "what you have is nicer," just loud enough for all boys present to hear. While he was at it, he also openly checked out Yamato's ass.

For Takeru, it was high time he found his girlfriend and made himself more comfortable. Far more comfortable – away from here. Where the world still made sense and where he _wouldn't_ be partaking in a conversation regarding his brother's genitalia and its peripheral regions.

He should spend more time with his brother - do a little bonding over what was new in their respective lives. Maybe ask Yamato what was he doing to himself and why. That scene just now was way too surreal for him.

For Taichi, it was _grueling_. Yuri placed one broad hand on the small of Yamato's back. He kept his groping PG enough, but the way his pinky stretched downwards made it clear Yuri was aching to bridge that forbidden gap to Yamato's refined backside. This was not a friendly pat. This was an I'm-going-to-destroy-your-anus pat.

Taichi was willing to bet that if they were in a less sociable situation, Yuri would have had a jolly good time squeezing Yamato like a squeaky toy.

' _Bet he'd fancy that. Oh, I bet he'd love making Yamato squeal.'_

' _ **And so would you.'**_

And now Taichi was bloody sore.

' _ **Bet you'd love throwing a few notes at him and fuck him right there on the stage. Hold him down from behind, grab his hips so he won't escape, and pound his arse whether he likes it or not.'**_

What really got to Taichi, though, was _not_ Yamato acting like he didn't mind. He _did_. It was all over his face and body. Yamato was on edge. But he looked like he was _trying_ to get used to it. Like he _cared_ – though not more than a week ago he didn't even want to _meet_ Yuri. Why did he have to do that?

What happened?

More than anything, that knocked every shred of humour out of Taichi like a knee in the guts.

' _Get away from him… don't touch him…only I get to touch him like this…'_ Was the litany playing inside Taichi's mind over and over again like a scraped 80s record.

At that moment, he regretted every kiss he never gave him.

Zero, the Knives' key-board player, knelt behind them, on the stage, and cued Yamato to come back up for sound-testing. Yamato ducked his chin once with a small motion, affirming he heard Zero loud and clear, and started towards Cheri Bomb's stand.

Before Yamato got away, Taichi placed a hand on his shoulder, resting the root of his palm within the hollow formed beneath the clavicle. It was so sunken, the bone jabbed Taichi even under Yamato's clothes. Yamato moved his head somehow to react, almost driving his skull into Taichi's forehead. Caught in the movements, Taichi's lips accidently ghosted over a soft, white cheek. So soft, it was like a persimmon. So close, the scent of him almost got Taichi high. Did they actually touch Yamato or was it in Taichi's head? He wasn't sure.

"Good luck!"

Yamato stood, unmoving, plunging Taichi into an expressionless blue. He didn't react and he didn't attempt to.

When Yamato got that way, it meant he managed to get so bloody livid he reached a neuronal melt-down point and was human only by approximation.

His anger was _so_ fascinating. He looked as if at any moment now, he'd land a good one on Taichi's jaw without Taichi knowing what riled that crazy bastard up so much anyway. Then, Yamato'd throw him flat on the stage and pin him down. He'd climb on top of him, grip Taichi's hair – strong enough to tear it from his scalp – and push Taichi's head back, hard. He'd bite Taichi's neck and move his lips, all slick and red with Taichi's blood – 'cause it's always down to blood with Yamato – to Taichi's mouth. He'd thrust his tongue inside and they'd kiss, passion oozing from their spit glands. _Damn_ , kissing Yamato would be terrifying. Then, they'd be ravaging each other like animals, on that stage, in front of everyone, brother and sister included.

Yes, Yamato looked a bit like that, Taichi reckoned – minus the lethality.

So was he as lost as Taichi felt? But-

"Yamato!" Dasha jabbed her finger into the back of his blonde head.

The smell around her was rank, as though she spent the last couple of days sun-bathing on a bus-station's bench. She probably did, actually. Her oversized clothes had rips and unceremonious tears in places which Taichi preferred covered – though whatever goats her oat and shit. Her socks were mismatched and one of her shoelaces was missing, so the flaps of her boot were pried open like a leather-black, Venus Fly Trap.

And yet – she paraded the streets of the city with a bespoke Gibson Les Paul guitar model which most people would have had to sell both kidneys to buy strapped to her back. She was one of those 'have to see it to believe it' type of people.

Yamato followed her signal without saying anything and Taichi took his place standing next to Yuri, who had the most dumbarsed, kissy-face expression stapled all over him like a leftover bubble-gum.

Needless to say, Taichi did _not_ appreciate the way Yuri looked at Yamato.

"So, you hit it off?"

"Yeah…" Yuri exhaled, eye-fucking Yamato and grating Taichi's nerves simply by existing in the same radius as he did. "He is…wow… something else."

Taichi fucking hated the way Yuri looked at _his_ Yamato. His _. His_ Yamato _._

He watched on as Yamato assumed his position on the low podium and adjusted Cheri's strap. "Yeah…"

"Right, listen up," Yamato's baritone whammed through the speakers, "for those of you who just arrived and for those who have forgotten, this is a cover night brought to you by the Animal Rights Centre and the Knife of Day. If you want to see us performing _our_ smashing hits – you better get yourselves to the City Hall live house on Saturday!"

The lead singer craned his neck sideways, getting the OK from the other band members.

"The next song is dedicated to the cutie who brought us here today and I seriously hope her brother, who's also watching, won't severely damage my nether regions after the show."

Yamato winked at Taichi, and a round of laughter washed the audience.

"Hikari Yagami, this is for you – Cry Little Sister by Gerard McMann"

A slow and drawled music filtered through their instruments. Even before Yamato hit the lyrics, it required no effort to detect that particular, sleazy note perfect for setting the kind of mood the patrons came for.

" **A last fire will rise behind those eyes  
Black house will rock, blind boys don't lie.  
Immortal fear, that voice so clear  
Through broken walls, that scream I hear**

 **Cry, little sister…"**

" **(Thou shall not fall)"** Zero, Ren and Dasha sang background vocals.

 **"Come to your brother"**

" **(Thou shall not die)"**

 **"Unchain me, sister"**

" **(Thou shall not fear)"**

 **"Love is with your brother"**

" **(Thou shall not kill)"**

 **"Blue masquerade, strangers look on  
When will they learn this loneliness?  
Temptation heat beats like a drum  
Deep in your veins, I will not lie...**

 **... To little sister"**

The chorus replayed. ****

 **"My Shangri-Las  
I can't forget  
Why you were mine  
I need you now**

 **Cry... Little sister"**

" **(Thou shall not fall)"**

 **"Thou shall not die**

 **Thou shall not fear"**

" **(Unchain me sister)"**

 **"Thou shall not kill..."**

If Yamato hadn't accomplished the objective before Taichi showed up, that song right now has most definitely set a seedy sort of climate all over the café. Blanketing it with a sheet from a third-rate love- motel and brewing liquid fire down girls' knickers.

By the end of it, Anna reattached herself to Taichi's side and snuggled up to him, enamoured. She put her head on his shoulder, her long, blonde tresses falling over Taichi's chest like a waterfall.

Taichi felt stupid because he felt guilty. He felt like he was cheating. He had to make an active cognitive effort to remind himself he wasn't. Yamato didn't care who Taichi took home… alright, he didn't actually take anyone home – a bench in the park when he was up to it and felt fancy if any. But that was beside the point.

He brought Anna here for that reason, no? To serve as a non-best-friend and non-gay distraction for his genitalia. So he put his arm around her shoulder with a tight squeeze, and in turn she draged him towards the sofas, where they could get a bit more horizontal.

"All right, I think you're starting to feel it. Bet you want more – what do you think?" Yamato sweetened up the listeners with low notes which carried a promise for sex and temptations.

On stage, while far from being an exhibitionist rocker with a pimping fur coat, he packed so much charisma! And that voice!

"Para – by Calexico"

" **I hold your wrist  
You bite your lip  
The push becomes an embrace**

 **I touch your face  
You close your eyes  
The embrace becomes a shove**

 **I walk away  
You follow too close  
The shove takes hold  
And there's nowhere to go**

 **Take it down  
Take it all the way  
Take it down  
Take it all the way down below the waterline**

 **I see you now  
Through a glass wall  
All that is you stays with you  
All that is me stays with me  
But we see it all  
We feel it all  
And there is no place we can't go**

 **Take it down  
Take it all the way  
Take it down  
Take it all the way down below the waterline"**

"The next piece is all for, and about, the grand Patrick Morrissey. This is How Soon is Now by the Smith's," Yamato announced over the heads of his spectators.

" **I am the son  
And the heir  
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar  
I am the son and heir  
Of nothing in particular**

 **You shut your mouth  
How can you say  
I go about things the wrong way?  
I am human and I need to be loved  
Just like everybody else does"  
**  
Everywhere Taichi looked, dark silhouettes of couples met heads-on-shoulders or merged into snogging, groping, and feeling-up-ing, blobulous monstrosities.

 **"…I am human and I need to be loved  
Just like everybody else does**

 **There's a club if you'd like to go  
You could meet somebody who really loves you  
So you go and you stand on your own  
And you leave on your own  
And you go home and you cry  
And you want to die**

 **When you say it's gonna happen "now"  
Well when exactly do you mean?  
See I've already waited too long  
And all my hope is gone**

 **You shut your mouth  
How can you say  
I go about things the wrong way?  
I am human and I need to be loved  
Just like everybody else does"**

Taichi didn't think anyone here listened to the lyrics. The pacing, the low notes and the way the instruments came together was perfect for this sugar-highed, fluff-themed evening but there wasn't an ounce of romance in this one. It was so sad. Yamato knew so many bloody rock songs – why did he have to pick something so fucking depressing?

It was a good call on Anna's part to take Taichi's hand and drag it up her thigh – under the folds of her miniature shorts. The drumming of his fingers on the table began syncing with Ren's double-bass.

Taichi guessed she couldn't be arsed to listen to the lyrics either – and neither did Yuri, who was _still_ all gaga-faced like a knob-head.

Under the heating lights, on the other side of the room, Yamato didn't miss any of Taichi's activities on that far off couch. He had a perfect view of Taichi's sexual exploits since that dick chose the one spot right in the centre of Yamato's field of vision. He must be damn proud of himself.

Yamato cracked the joints of his knuckles, making them pop, before he arranged them over the first cord of the next song. He would have left them there as well, if not for a pointed, familiar tap on his shoulder.

"Give me a C?" Dasha asked that way she often asks things – like she expects everyone to read her mind and hurry up already to follow the programme she dictated. But it was all the same for Yamato.

He switched places with her, checking up on Ren and Zero in the process to make sure the lads were sound with the new curriculum, and received no dispute in return.

"This is homage to another gorgeous red-head named Florence…" Dasha talked to the microphone with her perpetually groggy rasp. "I'm Not Calling You a Liar by Florence & the Machine"

" **I'm not calling you a liar,  
Just don't lie to me.  
I'm not calling you a thief,  
Just don't steal from me,  
I'm not calling you a ghost,  
Just stop haunting me,  
And I love you so much,  
I'm gonna let you…  
Kill me."**

' _Why this song?'_

It rattled him, right down to his internals, till it made his inner body parts hurt. What's up with that?

"… **Wraps itself around my tongue,  
As it softly speaks  
Then it walks, then it walks with my legs**

 **To fall,  
To fall,  
To fall, at your feet."**

Yamato followed Dasha's line of sight into an empty space on the opposite wall. It's a common trick for performers who still got stage fright: to stare at distant spot, avoiding the eyes of the crowd, while making it appear as though they were looking into the audience.

Hers hovered right over Taichi's head, who was getting himself busy under Anna's clothes.

 **"Oh but for the grace of god - go on,  
And when you kiss me, I'm happy enough to die.**

 **I'm not calling you a liar,  
Just don't lie to me.  
And I love you so much,  
I'm gonna let you…**

 **I'm not calling you a thief,  
Just don't…**

Sometimes, Yamato reckoned he wouldn't have minded being a girl. After all, it could have been terrific to sit there, next to Taichi, and be kissed like that – just because he had a set of ovaries and a cute muff to complement them.

 **And I love you so much,  
I'm gonna let you…**

 **Oh,  
I'm not calling you a ghost,  
Just don't…"**

Dasha had an operatic training. Who knew? It's the first time Taichi heard her emitting voices which weren't growls, random throat noises, or unintelligible mumblings to herself.

" **To fall,  
To fall,  
To fall,  
To fall,  
To fall,  
To fall, at your feet.  
Oh but for the grace of god - go on,  
And when you kiss me, I'm happy enough"**

Taichi began to understand what Yamato said to him that day. What he said about love and how everyone else was just a substitute. Like a cheap rip off of the original.

No one could replace Yamato.

 _This_ wasn't what Taichi wanted. _This_ wasn't what he _ever_ wanted.

But this would have to do.

He hated how much he loved him, sometimes.

"This is Pearl Jam's Black," Yamato attempted to educate the audience, now back in his original position in front of the microphone as the lead vocalist.

" **Sheets of empty canvas** **  
** **Untouched sheets of clay** **  
** **were laid spread out before me…"**

Yamato's voice was so heavy with meaning, and all those songs they played made Taichi feel like he was chewing on razors and forcing them down his gullet. Through Yamato's voice, Taichi could feel what Yamato felt and since Yamato was feeling so much – more than anyone else Taichi knew – Taichi was feeling too much to contain any of it.

He started snogging Anna furiously. His hands travelled up her torso and skimmed over the fat curve of her generous mounds. He pulled down the straps of her tank for better access, begging her to make everything go away.

With every word Yamato's voice formed inside his head, Taichi pushed into her harder and harder. It was egoistic, but he needed her to be his dreams right now. He needed her cold shoulders to cool the blood boiling in the veins trapped beneath his flesh.

She tasted miserable, though. The word 'dread' also popped to his mind, because at every single, horrible moment, he was making the wrong choice again and again and again.

 **** **"…All five horizons** **  
** **Revolved around her soul** **  
** **As the earth to the sun** **  
** **Now the air I tasted and breathed** **  
** **Has taken a turn"** **  
**

It's pretty established Yamato knew all about the way Taichi was around girls – and It's not like he cared, or anything.

He hadn't been present when things were getting down to the dirty deed before, is all.

For obvious reasons, he could afford to live without this vivid image in his mind. Now, however, it was happening right in his face and he wasn't allowed to look away.

No, mate. This wasn't even remotely funny. Why was he being punished for wanting to have a sloppy make-out session with his best friend against the door of the back room's toilet?

Taichi's new girl – Anna or something? Whatever – was nice and pretty. From where Yamato stood, she seemed to be bendy as well. Generally, it didn't seem like there was anything about her not to like. So what if Yamato honest-to-fucking-god wanted to put her on a rocket and launch her into a crash-landing on Mars with extreme prejudice?

And so what if he knew Taichi for nine years and loved him – his leader, his equal, his blood brother – through every single one of them while this slag, who doesn't know him at all, had just waltzed in here and is already fondling and petting him on her way into his underoos?

It's not like Yamato cared.

Not at all.

 **"…And now my bitter hands  
Chafe beneath the clouds  
Of what was everything  
Oh the pictures have  
All been washed in black  
Tattooed everything"**

The necklace around Yamato's neck was a scarlet string, looping around his throat into a choker and closing in on his respiration tube. It won't stop until it broke his neck, making him collapse into himself like a dying star. Funnily enough, what he was experiencing was how it's like to be empty.

On top of everything else, there was also that pang of guilt for using Yuri as a Band-Aid for his emotional disrepair.

 **"…I take a walk outside  
I'm surrounded by  
Some kids at play  
I can feel their laughter  
So why do I sear?**

 **Oh, and twisted thoughts that spin  
Round my head  
I'm spinning  
Oh, I'm spinning  
How quick the sun can, drop away"**

Yamato's throat hurt, as though someone tried forcing a white-hot metal rod into it. This chunk of pressure under his Adam's apple, like he swallowed a baseball ball, blocked his aerial passage. It overtook his voice which cracked and broke.

The lack of oxygen made him dizzy.

"… **Cradle broken glass  
Of what was everything  
All the pictures had  
All been washed in black  
Tattooed everything  
All the love gone bad  
Turned my world to black  
Tattooed all I see  
All that I am  
All I'll be"**

There was something in his eyes and he couldn't see well. The only thing Yamato made sense of was a brown, stumped stare aimed at him from across the room, which treated him like a special kind of prat. Yamato wanted to look anywhere else but he was stranded.

' _Why is he doing this to me?'_

"… **I know someday you'll have a beautiful life  
I know you'll be the sun  
In somebody else's sky"**

Everything became bleary and wet when it gushed down his face, bundled on his chin into inflated droplets, and fell down on his shirt.

He drowned alone in an ocean of smiling people.

" **But why?"**

' _Shit! No! Not now!'_

" **Why?!"**

' _Why?!'_

" **Why can't it be  
Why can't it be mine?!"**

Yamato mumbled a small "cheers" to the microphone and glued on the after-show-smile he practiced on. He'd have plenty of time to scrape it off in the toilet's basin with glass shards after he'd smash the mirror. _Fuck_ , this was embarrassing.

No matter where Taichi's sight landed, no one was snogging. Himself included. The patrons, the waiters and waitresses, and even some people who strayed in only to peep on the commotion inside, were all over the place. Some faces had tears of their own. Taichi's was one of them and he muffled a sob into his sleeve.

Thrown off from all directions, he didn't know what to do with himself. It's the first time he saw Yamato cry in years and when Yamato broke down, he took Taichi with him. If there was one thing Taichi would confess: he was scared.

He had one certainty in his mind right now, and it was about needing to go out for air because the scented candles and incense made the room reek worse than a thousand farts. As if the Pillsbury doughboy was burning on the stake and still crying for help while its chubby, white face melted off.

To Anna's disappointment and puzzlement, Taichi scrambled off her, mouthed a zipped "sorry", which was a sorry-not-sorry type of apology, and flung himself out the door.

No two ways about it – today was a perfect day to go outside. The skies were bluer than a Joan Baes song and were sinking into a vibrant purple.

It was all wrong. Everything was not supposed to be as it was right now.

It should have been snowing and full of smog. And not fluffy, holiday season snow either – but the hard snow mixed with hail, mud and an I-hate-you attitude.

It didn't, though, and for Taichi, the entire world was moving on without him. That was true, obviously, but it didn't make him feel any less lonely. It didn't stop him from wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeves, either.

Man, this was shit.

Most people could deal with sadness and depression – easily in fact. Those were so common nowadays Prozac and Recital were practically standard issue for any grade schooler to carry in their lunch-box.

' _But loneliness…loneliness is shit.'_

In the meanwhile, Elvis's Number One Romantic Hits replaced Yamato's vocals inside the café. The Knives either finished or their front-man was in a dire need for a break – which he clearly was.

Taichi sighed. He hated sighing. Useless body function. But he hated almost everything right now.

It's like they had no place in the world. Maybe they didn't. Just like it was back in the Digital World, maybe they are still wandering around with no clear destination, running the mill. But at least then, they had each other.

This city fanning out before him, so huge and endless, strangled him. It was too small to contain them both and was too full of pain. An urge was kicking his shins, telling him to move his legs and leave these streets that made him so complete for so many years.

Of course he and Yamato would always prefer falling in love with the real thing and not each other.

Taichi took a deep intake when a car passed by, filling his lungs with its oily exhaust, and coughed out his realisation.

That's it, right? He was _in love_ with Yamato, wasn't he? Not just wanted to be best buds with a fuck on the side.

Huh. Funny. There wasn't even the question about him being gay. He wasn't. And it didn't matter. Nothing about knobs or the dudes that came with them turned him on any. But Yamato was different. He was … _different_. Enough to make Taichi instinctively forsake all those doubts social norms expected him to have. Well, it's not like he particularly was a raging homophobe when he and Yamato were in a heap over each other, or in the onsens, or when they jerked off. Or in general.

After the party, things between him and Yamato have fallen back to normal, but that was only skin deep. Somewhere in his mind he was beginning to understand there was no going back. Whatever he felt was more than a phase. Taichi wanted something impossible. Something which did not belong to him.

None of that mattered to him, though. If he needed to, Taichi would tear this part away, if it meant having his best friend back for real. To be with him as they were always. His companion, his escape, his comfort, his antithesis – that's what he needed.

Even if it meant seeing Yamato trying to find happiness with someone else.

The song Yamato sang – Taichi understood it now. Both he and Yamato had their hearts carved out for people they couldn't have. Both of them would end up wandering from one encounter to another, from person to person, anyone who's willing to fuck them, in a desperate need for human warmth and console. To try and fill the hole which can't be refilled and pretend it's normal. Pretend it wasn't empty.

Somehow, no matter what, they always went in a circle only to end up in the same place.

Taichi wanted to be allowed to be in love.

' _Angry?'_

' _ **Cute.'**_

How can a person fall in love with someone after eight or nine years together? Of course he always loved Yamato through their friendship. He loved him even before Yamato was willing to admit they were friends, but none of this made any sort of sense. Not this time. No one falls in love with their best friend out of nowhere. It's something that happens only in cringe-inducing teenage dramas with shitty plot holes.

No…most likely…

' _The truth is, I feel as strongly about him now as I did back then.'_

So… those weren't his feelings which changed but his perception on what he could do with them. How he wanted to express them. All he did was become aware to what was always there – just in a way which wasn't orthodox. And morally ambiguous. His happy-hetro part just couldn't see it untilhe _saw it._ Otherwise _,_ there wouldn't be this debate. Otherwise, he would have told Yamato he caught him in action, joke about how Yamato had a nice arse, get a boot thrown at him, and they'd laugh it off. Or, if he couldn't have said anything, he wouldn't have made this spectacle about it.

Taichi had probably always loved Yamato _this_ way, whatever _this_ means, _and_ in all the other crazy and weird other ways a person can love another person and be completed by him. There was no differentiation between any of those for him. The lines he always thought were there were vanquished because they weren't. All that was required was another type of touch to shift from 'loving your best friend' to 'making love to your best friend' and it would be just another way to express intimacy. Just an extra layer to the relationship they haven't explored yet.

Yeah – that made much more sense. Even before now, no one knew how to make him feel quite like Yamato did. To contain him like he did. To believe in him when he couldn't do it for himself, but also stir him right. Yamato was fun and smart and kind. For all his serious grouchiness, Taichi knew how to make him laugh – it wasn't actually that hard. Yamato was also a constant. The whole existence of their unique friendship, which they created for themselves, made Taichi feel warm and whole inside, and he was so happy with how extraordinary everything about it was. He loved how close he was to Yamato. Closer in ways he knew most people didn't get to experience. One way or another, Yamato was always on his mind. It wasn't uncommon at all for Yamato to be the first thing he thinks about when he wakes up and the last before he goes to sleep.

' _ **It's only natural when you love someone; wanting them there in the morning.'**_

He…

' _Screw everything!'_

Taichi couldn't see his life without him.

' _Taichi, you're in love!'_

' _ **Thank you for the news.'**_

The fact that Yamato was an aesthetically pleasing specimen of a human being was a nice perk on the side, but when it came down to it, Taichi wanted him for all he was for him. For what he meant to him. For what he could be for him. Besides, he loved all those expression Yamato made on that handsome, pretty-boy face of his – and how it was Taichi who got to see them all. Maybe that's why he liked teasing him so much. He loved owning Yamato's attention and gauging his reactions when he got it. They were so gruff most of the time, but that was also part of Yamato's charm.

And Taichi hadn't thought of someone in such a passionate way in his entire life.

That was it, wasn't that? There can't be anyone else.

Only he took for granted the idea that Yamato would always be there. Would always be here. With him. Taichi didn't fathom how much he wanted Yamato until after whenever he realised he had a chance of losing him. That's so fucking tragic. It's the kind of rubbish whinge lazy poets fill books about.

In a sense… that made Yamato his first love. _'Woah!'_ just thinking this gave Taichi a freak out. If Yamato knew this thought made circles in Taichi's skull, he'd sock him. And it's not like Taichi waltzed gracefully into this recognition of his convoluted and train-wrecked emotions. No, no: he tripped like a jackass and fell face-fucking-first into them.

They used to refer to him as their courageous leader. Now, only Yamato still called him that sometimes, when he was in a funny mood.Well, the only thing Taichi felt like in this instant was a courageous arse. No, make it pussy-ass arse.

Despite the weird, tactless, and repulsive way Roman, that plonker, said what he did back then, in the locker room, the actual meaning of the words became scarily true to Taichi very fast. "Ignore the plumbing" and "good arse is good arse" may have been a crude way to go about it, but even madness holds a seed of truth. So what if Yamato had a penis between his legs? It didn't make him any less fuckable.

And Taichi _loved_ him.

And he _needed_ him.

A pressure on his shoulder snapped him out of his reverie. By the weight on it, he reckoned he was in deep and it took several attempts to get his attention.

When he searched for the intruder, he found the younger half of the Take-Ishida duo standing next to him and giving him extended sidelong glances.

"You wanna talk?"

Taichi gave a shot at smiling but didn't manage going all the way with it. "There's nothing to talk about."

"Taichi, you're like my second brother," ' _And will always be my hero',_ "I know you better than you give me credit." Blonde #2 waited a few seconds to see if the statement budged Taichi any.

Truth is, even if Taichi wanted to talk, he wouldn't have known where to start.

' _I want to bone your brother senseless,'_ is something the kid could seriously live without for the rest of his days.

When he saw Taichi wasn't going to give in, Takeru decided to do the talking for the both of them. "You know, aniki isn't someone who puts up his emotions and he isn't good with communicating his feelings," he had to pause and tee-hee at the understatement, "he often isn't good with communicating at all, actually -" he glanced over at Taichi, satisfied with the itty-bitty turn of his lips which spelt 'no-shittin',' "And you are shite at reading the mood-" and…smile's gone, "That's why I think what you two have between you is amazing. You somehow just understand each other. And no matter how explosive your arguments get, you know how to make up and sort out your relationship. You remember what's important and agree on it. That's bloody remarkable. So – no worries, Taichi."

Taichi looked across the street, where the red light flicked to green and vice versa _._ "Shouldn't you be inside, enjoying the romantic mood and snogging my sibling?"

"I can ask you the exact same thing, you know. You're _thirsty_." On that parting note, Takeru edged away, ignoring the dumb-struck expression Taichi sketched all over himself.

Before getting the chance to return to his oh-so-joyous sulking, however, new company sprouted around him, instead. Flanking him on both sides this time.

To his surprise, a frustrated but warm smile flicked on Anna's mouth as she placed a supportive hand on his upper arm.

"I don't think it will work between us, luv. You're a great kisser, though, if it helps any! Good luck!" she gave him a quick peck on the cheek and her best mincing tone before she left.

Standing to his other side was Hikari. She didn't say anything – just wrapped her arms around his midsection and hugged him. It took him a moment to understand he wasn't being tackled and he hugged her thin shoulders back.

She grew taller again.

Closing the clasps for his bass' case, Yamato followed the tuft of bright red hair to find Dasha sitting on the floor next to him, wearing a smile he learnt to fear.

"Good show. Have fun." This was not a question and she didn't expect an answer.

"The fuck are you on about?"

She didn't answer – resolute to continue staring at him till he said what she wanted him to. She got back on her feet, picked up the handle of her hard guitar case, "bloop"-ed at him, and exited the building.

He watched her go. If there is one thing he learnt in their short – collaboration? _Friendship_ even? Maybe…? – is that she had some odd charisma situation going on for her. He listened when she talked and left when she did anything else. The problem was making sense of what she said.

He checked his phone again. Still nothing from Taichi.

When Taichi dashed outside earlier and didn't return, Yamato was once again scared shitless – but there's no point in nagging. Yamato left a message and hoped for the best.

Hoisting his own bass' case over his shoulder, Yamato joined Yuri at one of café's tables where they waited for their order of tall espresso and super-duper-three-layered-chocolate mocchachino to arrive.

"I gather you study physics. Trying to get into the industry?" Yuri started with a civil conversation.

"Nah. It requires interpersonal finesse and social sensitivity – both qualities of which I lack."

Yuri's eyebrow arched up and he put on a politely confused smile.

So Yamato elaborated. "It requires intense arse licking and I don't fancy that. I'm more into deep-space research. Maybe I'll continue studying and do my graduate degree in astrophysics. Not sure yet."

Yuri curled the top of his lips and made point of appreciating Yamato with his eyeballs, top-down. "You're cute. You should show off your arse in our games more often. It'll be phenomenal for morale."

Yeah, Yuri was joking and all, _and_ backhandedly complimenting him, but Yamato was partway to fuming like an angsty kettle.

Lucky Yuri didn't get to test Yamato's patience by pushing that line of conversation. Hikari brought over their drinks, all cute and professional in her apron, notepad, and pen.

Yuri skimmed the foam with a spoon before – "can I ask you something and you don't sack me?"

"You can try."

"Are you a natural blonde?"

"On my mother's side." Yamato was snappy, true, but you know what? Fuck this guy, that's what.

Yuri nodded, but since he didn't add anything else to the conversation, a quiet vacuum filled the space between them. Yamato didn't care how awkward he had single-handedly made their "date" at the moment. He folded his arms over the wobbly table, eyes following the commotion outside the window and thoughts passing him by.

"Sorry, Ishida, I never dated another man before. Do you take it up the arse?"

For the longest time, Yamato ignored him completely and went over this week's grocery list in his head.

"You know that saying 'to live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist?'" He found himself asking after a few minutes. The dusty, rusty motor-mouth switch in him had been pressed and the urge to talk hit him like a napalm bomb. Just so he could vent out _something._

"I think so. Isn't that-"

"Oscar Wilde, yes. You know, as a teenager, I loved telling myself I was one of those few, lucky ones – one of them fucking special snowflakes. I still respect the man's works and all, but, seriously, that is such a pile of rubbish. Life is hard enough without pretentious, self-important artsy figures fancying themselves all superior, like they are better than anyone else or have some authority over the right and wrong way to go about things. Everyone has their bullshit to deal with. You can slog away in a bleeding canning factory and it doesn't mean you live less or more than anyone else."

"Whoa! What brought that about?" Yuri laughed, but he wasn't dismissive. More like he found his date's conduct to be all-around endearing. Yamato wasn't sure he was in the mood for being 'endearing'. He wasn't sure in what kind of bloody mood he was at all.

He wished he were a girl, sometimes. Taichi would have shagged him, Takeru would have known how to go about him better, and Yamato could have blamed his current state of mental anarchy on that time of the month.

"Sorry, I'm like this after shows." Yamato sunk in his chair, hiding under his fringe. "I sometimes complain about random things to avoid addressing what's really bothering me."

"Nah, it's fine. I just never started a date with a philosophical raging before. I'd ask what's wrong but I have a guess."

Yamato released an indifferent hum which meant he was willing to entertain whatever theories thrown his way, but playing psychologist-and-nutter now was out of the question.

"There's someone else on your mind right now," Yuri stated with a smile which only made him look more deflated. "Don't get me wrong or anything – I'm really flattered you texted me. You are very shag-able for a guy and I feel like a total wanker for doing this to myself, but… why are you here?"

"That's an even deeper philosophical question to start a first date with, mate," Yamato not-so-gracefully skirted past the subject.

"You know what I mean. Why aren't you dating Taichi?" Yuri asked, gingerly touching his hand to the one Yamato left splayed on the table in his speechless condition.

That got Yamato by the balls. Totally got him by the balls. He raised his face to meet the hazel eyes, blood thumping through the main artery of his front lobes so hard he could use it to replace a metronome.

"He's my best friend…"

Yuri's smile flickered and dropped from his face. "I have a best friend. I don't usually dry hump him in public – not even when I'm piss-drunk." He tilted his head back, trying to relieve some tension from the trapezius muscles framing his neck. "Mate, I saw you two on Friday. Then you went home together. I figured, maybe Taichi realised what he wanted from himself and I'm one-hundred percent fine with that. I don't need pity dates, man."

"It's nothing like that!"

Yuri scratched on the underside of his chin, unconvinced. "Do you know you smile when I talk about him but almost never otherwise?"

Yamato considered driving the first eating utensil he could grab through his eye-socket and hope to die. Could this get any more awkward?!

If anything though, Yuri's face started projecting some sort of empathy – which made things worse.

"I saw how you looked at him," he continued, "You know – that look most people can only dream of receiving. You won't look at me like that. Like you admired the ground he walked on."

"I do," Yamato admitted. No point in denying it now. "But it doesn't mean _Taichi_ wants to bloody bang me or anything."

Yuri dropped his arms out of sight and leaned back. "I think he does. And not _just_ bang. Every time someone goes near you, he gets a murder-face."

"He's just being protective."

"Half the team wants to get under his sister's skirt and he doesn't even blink 'bout it."

Yamato was running out of arguments.

No.

He was running out of _excuses_.

Maybe that's the problem. He was running too much – just not in the right direction.

Yamato needed his best friend and better half. He was gagging for the one person who had the balls to fight him and set him straight. Even on days like today, when he didn't know anything at all, he knew this much.

Since way back when, Yamato refrained from talking about his sexual attraction with Taichi because he thought it'd be unnecessary. Because being with Taichi was the only thing that mattered to him. So he convinced himself mentioning he'd _appreciate_ giving Taichi head on occasion would be redundant at best. He was so sure Taichi wouldn't want him in a physical way – so what would have been the point?

Truth is – Yamato was just a coward. It used to be that no one scared him like Taichi did; the way Taichi came so close and changed him. Yamato was terrified of what he felt for Taichi, sometimes.

By now, though, Yamato became aware that what scared him most was himself. The rejection wasn't what stopped him – he didn't give a fig about that – but how bound he and Taichi were. What would happen if Yamato ended up like his dad? What if, one day, he'd push Taichi away from him? Worse, so much worse than that – what would happen if Taichi, loyal and wonderful Taichi, who always puts up with whatever rubbish Yamato hurls at him, would want to stay?

It wasn't the 'no' which scared him – it was the 'yes'. The deep friendship, the hand that held his, which was supposed to not let him go – more than anything in his life, Yamato was afraid to ruin it. He would ruin everything and hurt Taichi beyond repair. Taichi would be forced to change and become a different person to deal with Yamato's bullshit; he'd become bitter, angry and cynical. When everyone would wonder what happened to Taichi's glorious smile, they'd put two plus two together an all fingers would be pointing Yamato's way. Yamato couldn't stand it. He can't be the reason why that beautiful smile had gone away. He can't. He just can't.

With these kind flippant, half-arsed feelings, how dare he ask Taichi to subject himself to the mess which is a male-on-male lifestyle? And in the unforeseeable, tiny percentage where Taichi says 'yes' – would Yamato dare allow them to have yet another expression of closeness they might risk?

If Yamato could watch over Taichi and make sure that smile always remained intact – that was more than good enough for him.

' _But now…'_

Now, something already threatened it. So, maybe, if he came to Taichi, if he talked to him, if he told him… if nothing else, at least he'd be free from this dead weight inside him he'd been carrying around for who knows how long.It will be in the open. This saga in his life will end.

Besides, his and Taichi's relationship lasted through tons of serious shit. Once, they almost killed each other. Sex won't be enough to tear them apart.

If anything, he was more concerned about Taichi being upset over him not telling him earlier. They'd overcome it, but still.

Well, at the least, they'd get to practice more talking, so there's that.

Oh, wait – Yuri was still talking to him.

"… I think that if he didn't make a move, it's only because he needs time to digest it. And who could blame him? You are his mate who just about everyone wants to bang. He's probably afraid to upset the fragile balance."

While Yamato listened to him with half his attention in the conversation, he was also reminiscing of the day he wrote WHICH in high school. It was a damn good song. He was proud of it. _"If you love someone, tell them. If you can go to them, run there."_

It left him asking where the fuck did all his determination go to. Why is he being such a wanker? Maybe he should start following his own brilliant advice. It's not like he's asking Taichi to marry him or something. He's merely going to mention he is open to the idea of becoming Taichi's plaything in bed, serve Taichi his ass without complaints, and be taken advantage of. It's a compliment, isn't it?

Yamato zoomed back in to the conversation with his – is Yuri still considered a "date" after giving him this pep-talk? Conversation with his motivationalist then! "So, on a scale from 'go for it' to 'what the fuck were you thinking?!' – where do you think I stand?"

Yuri droned on for a moment, contemplating his answer. "On the 'alcohol solves everything' point?"

"You are a true friend, Yuri."

Some bloke in a fedora played 'Chelsea Hotel' outside Puzzle Cafe. He was pretty good, if a bit shy and unable to hit Leonard Cohen's raspy notes. Yamato tossed some coins into the velvet sheet padding the man's guitar case and headed home, shuffled in by the pedestrian traffic.

In some way, he was relieved. In another – it's like he was marching down the death row. As such, he started coming up with all those little things he wanted to do before he was gone. Tie the remaining loose ends, if you will.

One bullet in particular stood at the top of his list. He scrolled down the letters in his contact chart till he reached 'S' and smiled at the pixelated icon of the pink bird-Digimon when it popped onto his screen.

He knew Sora knew he cared for her a ton. He also knew she knew him well enough not need him to verbalise it to her every Tuesday. Didn't mean he shouldn't get over himself from time to time and remind his precious friends that that's what they were to him – precious.

"Hello?" came her mellow voice.

"H-hey… Sora…" his stuttering echoed back to him through the phone and he was glad the red-head couldn't see him face-palm.

"Yamato? What's wrong?"

"I…" He breathed in and breathed out. "I just wanted to remind you what an amazing friend you are and one of the best people on earth."

A loaded pause filled his ear.

"Yamato, you are seriously freaking me out right now."

Despite himself, Yamato chuckled. "Sorry. Just feels like I don't always show you how much I appreciate you. So I figured…you know… I should do it from time to time."

"That's so sweet! But don't worry about it. Is that the only reason you called?" The question accompanied a certain flavour of doubt in her voice which promised him he could tell her anything and she'd be there for him.

"I also wanted to apologise. I know it's been years, but I never properly apologised after we broke up, didn't I? So… ummm… I'm sorry I made our relationship one of convenience when we dated. You are an amazing friend and you didn't deserve to deal with my mess. Especially since I barely helped you with yours. I'm sorry I wasn't what you deserve."

There were so many things Yamato learnt about himself while being with her. That he couldn't be with her, for one. They had similar issues and they dragged each other down and, along with the Oedipal part, he was sometimes plainly using her. He liked her because she gave him the attention he wanted. He didn't love her. He loved the idea of her. He loved the idea of having a mother around. He even loved the social acceptance. It was awful. Also, like a child who was on his best behaviour in front of his parents, he showed Sora himself at his best.

Not like with Taichi. Taichi made Yamato react and handled him at his worst – and there was a lot of "worse" to handle. "Worse" which would have led to horrid explosions between him and Sora if they had stayed a couple.

"Oh, honey," Sora said softly into the speaker, "I know. I think that, in some place, I always knew. I didn't want to think about it when we dated, but you never looked at me like you do at…" she sighed and decided not to verbalise _it_. "And you didn't want a caretaker to baby you and I didn't want to fill the mother role for you. Not really. It wasn't what either of us needed, so of course it didn't work. Relationships like these don't work. Besides, I know you," she let out a small laugh, "and I've forgiven you way before there was anything to forgive. You're a good person and I knew, and I still know, that you won't hurt me on purpose." She smiled, even if he couldn't see it. "Yamato, I'm not made of glass. I've been slammed into a mountain four _fudging_ times by Mugendramon and lived to tell." Her gentle maturity was tangible over the phone. "I am fine."

Her proclamation barely came out of her mouth before three consecutive beeps cut her off. Her hair brushed against the microphone for a few seconds before Sora's voice returned. "Sorry, Taichi is on the other line. Want me to give you a ring later?"

"No, its fine. Go ahead and answer."

"Alright, bye!"

"Bye."

Tucking the phone back in his pocket, he adapted the straps of the helmet under his chin, pulled his scooter out of the parking lot, and rolled his two-wheeler home.

He'd call Jyou when he'd get home. Jyou always had smart things to say and there was something freakishly sooting about his voice; like the embodiment of indica. Alternatively, Jyou wouldn't say anything, so you could just rant at him while he put the phone on speaker and tuned you out. Good enough.

Then – Taichi.

The only problem left was Yamato and his stupid inability to decide what he was going to say – as in the precise wording. Yes, he wanted to express to Taichi he had a sexual interest in him, but it wasn't just that, now, was it?

' _God! Gabumon is right! Why do I have to be so bloody complicated?!'_

Strolling along the streets, Taichi found himself walking around aimlessly for hours. What he needed was to sort himself out. He made a mental list of all the things he wanted to ask Yamato about. There were about a gazillion bullets on it. When his finger-pads twiddled with his phone, he didn't notice it was Sora's number they searched.

An obnoxious "beep" gave him the finger and told him the line was busy. After less than a second, though, it was his turn to talk to the red-head and Sora's caring voice was like a blessing to him.

"Hey Taichi! What a coinkydick! I just got off the phone with Yamato."

"Sora…"

The dejection in his voice triggered her Mama-Sora senses.

"If you two are fighting again, so help me-! Do I need to get down there and babysit you?!"

He made a deep, guttural noise – like the whine of a limping doggy.

"Hey, Taichi…what's wrong?"

"Sora, I've done goofed."

"What happened?"

"I may have shoved the love of my life into the arms of another man."

Of all the things Sora expected _her_ Taichi Yagami to say, this was _not_ one of them. She was mute for a good few seconds before, "What…? When did this happen?"

Air ejection rasped on the other side of the line before Taichi continued. "I'm sorry I'm dropping this on you out of nowhere. I just… I'm a mess."

"Don't worry about it! But-"

"I just know," he answered the question she didn't get to ask, "what I don't know is what to do now."

"If you really believe what you're saying, then I think you do."

"What do you mean?"

"You are many things, Taichi Yagami. You can be insensitive, rash, and you suck at reading the atmosphere. But you are not a fool and you sure as hell not a coward. Both of us know that, if this is the real thing, it's not every day you get to feel the way you do and it's not every day you get to feel loved."

The silence on the line told her he was waiting for her to spell it out to him.

"What I'm trying to say is: If you love her – run to her. If we could control with whom we fell in love, life would have been much easier but a lot less magical." She talked like she had fire in her guts and it almost made Taichi tear up.

"See?! This! This is why you have the crest of love! That's so deep." Then it dawned on him, "Wait… were you quoting Southpark?"

"Yes, but you have to admit it's spot on."

Taichi laughed. "I love you, Smores."

"Love you too, Floofy. Anyway, I have to go – I'm helping my mother with her lessons today."

"I thought she didn't expect you to be the great ikebana princess of the Takanouchi ie-moto, no?"

"She doesn't, but I still help when she needs me to. I know helping around the house is a foreign concept to you, but she's my mum. The only one I got. By the way, if you want to go for some romantic gesture, I can settle you with some flowers. I also know some nice places to date at Osaka."

"Have I told you how amazing you are?"

"Today? Nope, not yet."

"You are amazing, Sora."

"I reckon I am. Well, I'll talk to you later, Taichi."

"Cheers."

Hanging up the phone, Taichi was so unsurprised to have ended up at Yamato's doorstep, he could have had an un-heart-attack from _not_ being surprised. Sora didn't tell him anything he didn't already know, but it was always good to get a confirmation from someone whose head was still attached to their shoulders.

Or bad.

It was definitely bad.

Taichi had it bad.

There are those crossroads in everyone's life. Something, something, best laid plans, something, something, train wreck. Those are the ones that end up changing people in some profound way. Taichi reckoned he was at one of them.

He figured he could go up and wait for Yamato to return from his date. They'd hang out and Taichi would hear all about it and pretend it wasn't burning his soul like the best WarGreymon had in him.

Maybe the right time would come up and Taichi would tell Yamato all those big and little things Yamato made him feel. He could already picture the particular shade of red Yamato'd develop on his face. That was the only part which was anywhere near fun about all this emotional roller-coaster.

That and the question: How much closer can they yet be? The answer alone was something Taichi wanted to explore.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14: All the Promises We Made, From the Cradle to the Grave, When All I Want is You.

They had three fabled sayings here:

"If there is doubt – there is no doubt". It meant that, regardless of the dilemmas a person faces, they don't get the privilege of acting mindlessly. Ask, figure things out, and resolve the issue logically before making a move.

The second was: "It takes a split of a second to make a decision. Any time past that point spent on thinking it over is you trying to cope with the decision made" – That one was pretty self-explanatory.

The last, and most critical one, which they often used to comfort Daisuke back at the day, is: "Don't worry! No one dies a virgin. Life screws everybody over" – this one here is also pretty much what it says on the tin.

Tonight, Taichi knew what he wanted. He made his decision a while ago, thought it over, and made sure there was no doubt left in him. He would face the ramifications, whatever they may be. The only thing left to do now was get screwed over.

Regardless of how rash-y and gaseous he was, it was high time Taichi owned up to his crest and stopped running away. From Yamato and from himself. He was going to face this hot mess head-one because _fuck it!_ That's just how he did things. It's been _way_ too long since he did something adventurous and impulsive. Time to get back on track.

He wanted Yamato to remember him the way Yamato _wanted_ to remember him. As whom Taichi was for him. As someone who wasn't afraid to face the world with courage, head-on. As someone Yamato would be proud to follow, but could walk beside. As his best friend. Taichi earned Yamato's trust through hard-fucking-labour and he wasn't going to fail him. For once, he wanted to show Yamato he can get it right first-time going. For Yamato… because he, Taichi, needed him.

Besides, if he'd wait any longer, Yamato would barge through his front door, no holds barred, and _punch_ sense into Taichi.

Once he told that to himself, the emotional equivalent of being given a hug from a Monzaemon had shattered Taichi's turmoil. Everything was light and dopey, like the valve inside his head had budged and released the entire fuming gunk which had been settling there over the last two weeks.

The fact he didn't know how to broach on anything remotely associated with the subject didn't matter. So what? By the end of the night, he'd have Yamato back. Nothing else mattered.

Other than that, the single certainty he was willing to swear on was that anything he'd have with 'mato, regardless of the exact label they put on their relationship, would be passionate, fraught and consuming.

As their friendship – so would most likely be their sex. Taichi wasn't going to bridal-carry Yamato into a bed of roses, where he'd lay him and take him gently. While seeing Yamato die from embarrassment in that scenario may be hilarious, for the first five minutes or so, the real deal would be bending Yama over the basin and going at it till the walls break.

Now, if only Taichi could stop his large intestine from overloading on nerves and making him want to shit his Y-fronts, he'd be golden.

Blowing the final note on his harmonica, Yamato placed the small, wood-and-metal instrument on his nightstand.

He was aware he was being ridiculous, not to mention an absolute lost cause, but he kinda hoped Taichi would come here and hear him play. The jizztrumpet-head always liked listening to him. Sometimes, he'd ask Yamato to play for him, lie on the floor, and stare at the ceiling fan going round and round and round, losing himself in the uniformed, angular velocity of its rotation. Taichi liked listening to Yamato play when he was upset because, according to what Taichi said, through his music, Yamato told him things Yamato couldn't word right.

A small, green flash from the laptop's screen informed him one of the films he'd been pirating had finished downloading. Yamato wanted to watch something with a level of violence anywhere between excessive and completely off its tits. As per usual, however, he ended up going for the arse about face materials that were a whole new shade of kookoo and totally losing the plot. Some were a combination of both.

His GB-absorbing hobby consisted of enough cinematic footage to make his friends mind-numb for a month. Its highlights included Fight Club, Reservoir Dogs, Paprika, Donnie Darko, John Dies at the End, The Boondock Saints, and Green Street Hooligans. He had too much between his ears to end up like those fuckers in the last one, but "It isn't knowing that your friends have your back. It's knowing that you have your friends' back." was right up Yamato's alley. Then there was the latest addition to his collection of peculiarities called Swiss Army Man.

The _real_ classics.

Who cared if those were always the sappy, boring films that won awards? The only reason that happened was because talentless people, who knew too little of humanity and thought far too highly of themselves, fancied the idea that angst and wangst are poetic.

Yamato didn't see the appeal in those pessimistic flicks which preached how horrible humanity was and how they all were going to hell, literally or figuratively. They weren't realistic in any way either.

Most people had harsh lives to some extent – so what? The fact remains that they also survived and moved on in the world. Yes, there are challenges and things to grieve over but there is nothing else to do but move on. In a way, it's survival of the fittest. Those who didn't – dropped dead like flies, and it's fucking awesome that a race can take so many punches and not crumple.

When he wasn't illegally consuming intellectual properties, Yamato didn't feel like wasting his valuable time on the telly. Hadn't used it in years, actually. The box in Yamato's room served Taichi and Taichi's PlayStation while the one upstairs was the antique with all the white noise. Otherwise, the telly is like a zombie with silicone implants: fun to look at, but serves no real purpose.

To top it off, he was so fucking livid about the way the mass media in the country depicted the non-straight community – as though they were something between zoo animals and caricatures. Bisexual erasure was also still a thing because, apparently, the idea that not everyone is limited to a unary way of life was too much for some to handle. Or every now and then they'd decide 'gay equals cute'. 'Gay equals cute' actually meant 'gay equals someone's fetish'. If it weren't the type of shit that made him fume, Yamato would have almost been flattered. He was so fucking glad his dad didn't partake in any of it.

Tradition said one thing, but Yamato couldn't be arsed to care. It wasn't his fault his heart was carved out for another man. It wasn't. Was it?

Yamato reached for the Rosé vino he placed on his desk and poured himself a serving into its complimentary glass, singing this song that wouldn't let him be. He opted for a nice, pleasant evening with him, himself, and a fine collection of graphically weird, or weirdly graphic, slices of cinematography.

Without bothering with the laces, Taichi toed off his trainers at the entrance and let himself in. His sole hope was that he wouldn't have to wait 'round here for Yamato to plunge through to the door while snogging an undressing Yuri.

As it stands – he wouldn't. A sad singing voice, which Taichi wasn't used to at all, greeted him.

" **Please… see me… reaching out for someone I can't see."**

It was Yamato's singing – which meant no one else was in the house. Yamato wouldn't make sounds like this around strangers.

Taichi couldn't decide if he was glad Yamato wasn't with Yuri or if he's a nervous wreck.

"… **Best laid plans sometimes are just a one night stand  
I'd be damned Cupid's demanding back his arrow  
So let's get drunk on our tears and…"**

Taichi heard Yamato sing before. He went to almost all his concerts. He was used to Yamato unleashing his rage upon the world or fire up his audience with passion. Occasionally, deliver solace and comfort.

" **God, tell us the reason youth is wasted on the young.**

 **It's hunting season and the lambs are on the run,**

 **Searching for meaning…"**

But Taichi wasn't used to hearing anything like this – tender and so vulnerable.

' _I love you. I love you so much.'_

"… **But are we all lost stars? Trying to light up the dark?**

 **Who are we? Just a speck of dust within the galaxy?"**

Curiosity met caution, leaving Taichi standing on the seal to Yamato's room without entering. Yamato's back was turned to him and he was nurturing a glass of pink liquid between his pointing and forefinger while tempering with his laptop. His hair was pulled back away from his face with a little pin, so it looked like a baby's haircut.

Of course it wasn't the first time Taichi saw Yamato's room, but he hadn't seen it like _this_ – from the perspective of someone who wanted to have sex in it.

Taichi hadn't seen Yamato like this before, either. Yamato had such a beautiful way to just _be_.

"… **Don't you dare let our best memories bring you sorrow…"** **  
**

Yamato wore nothing but an oversized jumper which was almost translucent from wear. It slid off one of his bony shoulders in ripples and barely covered his naked bum. He looked so small and thin inside all those folds of fabric which elegantly fell away from him – but strong. On his neck still dangled the necklace Taichi gave him, and Yamato's feet were kept warm by a pair of grey, chunky socks.

And that's it; there was nothing else to obscure his figure from Taichi's eyes.

"… **turn the page; maybe we'll find a brand new ending.**

 **Where we're dancing in our tears…"**

Yamato lifted his hands to adjust the HDMI cable stretching from his computer to the television, revealing his luscious, heart-shaped buttocks and the balletic lines of his long and nude body.

' _Lovely'_

"… **I thought I saw you out there crying.**

 **I thought I heard you call my name."**

Yamato had a narrow waist and sharp pelvic bones that, as an effect, gave him curves.

Taichi allowed himself a few more seconds of remaining unseen. To steal more of the milky shoulders peeking from under the frayed knit and appreciate so much white skin.

Judging by the smell, Yamato had just come out of the shower. Taichi's nostrils were met with the aromatic tufts of fresh soap and there was still some moisture trapped between the savoury contours of Yamato's filled-out thighs. A few drops were traversing the length from the ends of his damp hair to his back.

What a damper it was when reality came punching: For all Taichi knew, Yuri had just left the premises after having that small party up Yamato's arsehole he wanted so much.

On a side note – _'seriously, what grudge does Yamato hold against trousers?!..._ _O_ _r pants?!_ _'_ It seemed to him half the time Taichi walked in on Yamato, the man was half starkers, if not entirely in his natural state. 

"… **but are we all lost stars? Trying to light up the dark?"**

Taichi wanted to run up to him, wrap his arms around him, lay his head on top of his, and do everything he can to make Yamato stop singing. Hearing him hurt.

He did none of it.

"Hey."

Lurching back into reality, Yamato's far-away expression was replaced when the line of his lips curved to form a small smile. Maybe today won't suck so bad after all. He really wanted to be alone, but having someone to talk to could be good.

"Late!"

"Never. What are you singing?" Taichi's attention skipped onto the harmonica on Yamato's night table. There was something on Yamato's mind.

A dusted shade of peach powdered the white cheeks and the regular jitter jumped his jamming fingers, framing Yamato's answer. "Just something Keira Knightley performed in some film…" He didn't want to talk about it, but his exterior melted into a more comfortable face nonetheless.

In his mind, Yamato's mental image of himself gave him an appreciative pat on the back. He wasn't just happy to see Taichi here – he was fucking ecstatic. Instead of running and hugging the shit out of him, though, Yamato subdued the urge like a pro and played it calm. That took _a lot_ of subduing, mind you.

"You up for doing something tonight?" Taichi gave one look around the room and turned back to Yamato with a 'you better be… pretty please' written all over his face.

"Safe." Yamato had no idea why Taichi was here, but he didn't complain. It was so much like Taichi to spontaneously appear anyway. And Yamato was so happy to hear Taichi's voice. Happier still it was within the resonance of his own room. It energised Yamato.

Yamato took in the exposed patch of golden-brown skin showing through the opening in Taichi's crisp shirt – unbuttoned at the top out of sexy, sheer laziness. Then there was the way his shoulders filled out that shirt very nicely. The spicy fragrance of his aftershave – it was there as well.

Knots formed in Yamato's lower abdomen and pressed on his loins. He adjusted the hem of his jumper, covering himself before that joyous part of him would spill, _literally,_ to Taichi all the things Yamato wanted to tell him by himself.

The motion didn't go unnoticed by Taichi, who quirked an eyebrow and matched it with the grin of a right prick. "Since when are _you_ shy about _that_?"

Secretly, not only did the gesture make Yamato look _offensively_ cute – precious even – but it also made Taichi want to see more of what Yamato was trying to conceal. Taichi's natural curiosity was to blame. The moment he was told he can't have something he _had_ to have it.

Yamato won't let it show if something was getting to him, though – especially if it was getting in between his legs. So it made Taichi want to get it out of him on purpose. Out of some adventurous agenda Taichi had in him.

Lucrative, dirty-minded intentions aside for a moment, he also wondered how he'd respond to seeing another guy's cock under these circumstances. Yeah, of course he'd been around naked dudes before – in the changing rooms, or onsens and what have you, and that was brilliant n' all, but… touching one? As in, not _his_? Can he even be OK with it? Would it disgust him? Yamato's arse was one thing – one _damn fine_ thing, even – but in all his recent turmoil, Taichi didn't think about the frontal, distinctly manly organs before. And what about the part where another man will be touching Taichi's most private parts?

"Kiss my arse," Yamato spat, swivelled away, put his glass aside, and bent over, searching for a clean pair of briefs from the pile of discarded clothes on the floor. He felt very sexy being quite so undressed next to Taichi. He didn't notice he felt like this before and it was really fantastic.

In the process, he was exposing himself to Taichi, giving him an outstanding show. Taichi turned into an inarticulate mess of endorphins with a plenty engorged erection in an instant. The single thought he processed successfully was about how amazing, and _way_ too easy, would it be to slip Yamato a finger and watch him take it in and squirm around it. He was being all sexy with Taichi, wiggling his little tushy right in Taichi's face! And that was some quality tush to boot. _'…y.'_

' _No worries, blud. If I get lucky tonight, I just might,'_ was Taichi's next thought, but also, _'gods, give me strength!... Or Bourbon!'_

Yamato may have been able to come up with a better comeback, but he was way too busy noticing how, beneath that _estimation_ of smile, Taichi was, in fact, grumpy. It took away some of the fun from staring at his flexing muscles and that was just unacceptable. Yamato had to rectify that.

"Coffee."

As predicted, snapping back to reality made the upward tilt on Taichi's lips perish. What was left behind was a slanted, thin line which quivered at the edges and reminded Yamato of funerals. Like it did when Taichi was about to cry. Taichi's final response was a disinterested grunt and the thrust of his hands into the pockets lining his denim.

Yamato raised one delicate eyebrow. "I'll make it Irish, then."

Slipping inside his underwear, he disappeared into the kitchen only to return after a few minutes with a mug full of the steaming, brown liquid as well as a tall bottle of Bailey's. Taichi eyed the liqueur as it was poured, until its eddying tendrils diffused along the coffee to form a homogeneous, creamy beverage.

Yamato extended his arm to place the porcelain cup, imprinted with the 'T' Symbol of his university, in Taichi's hands but when his mate continued staring at it like a dolt, Yamato snapped.

"If you're going to be this cheerful all fucking day, I'll find imaginative combos for the terms 'testicular manslaughter' and 'nail-gun' and apply to you," but everything he said came from under a slanted smile.

Some tension had lifted off Taichi's shoulders and he shook his head before taking the first sip.

"Why do I always let you get me drunk?"

"Because I'm your bad-decision fairy, Taichi." Yamato let Taichi take a moment to snort. "And because you've been through enough in your life. Secretly, you just want the world to turn without you at least one hour per week." He curled his fingers around Taichi's with a hold that was just a bit too tight and everything Taichi needed. What he loved Yamato for.

Taichi exhaled the hot fumes with supreme satisfaction. "You are very good to me," and never in his entire life did Taichi have to battle such a strong impulse to locate the first available flat surface and pin someone under him on it.

Yamato let him have another minute of the simmering paradise, brewed from beans and Irish goodness, before becoming serious.

"You haven't answered me yet."

"'bout?"

"What's your damage? Why are you so bloody off?"

This was so frustrating because Yamato knew Taichi _wasn't_ playing the halfwit. Not even close. Taichi was making sure Yamato knew exactly what they were getting into if they opened this now.

"Does it matter? I'm here now," Taichi countered. He knew he sounded like his oversized gob decided to malfunction and go on babbling without an off switch when he could have otherwise seized the opportunity to have the heart-to-heart he came for. Of course he understood what Yamato meant. He understood bloody well what Yamato meant – but he wanted to hear what Yamato had to say first.

"I missed you." Yamato turned his head away and initiated a staring contest with the wall.

This Taichi didn't see coming. It was so sweet. Yamato being honest and showing his worry like this was a rare event. Yamato had the Buddaha's will power – _nay,_ a hellhound's will power. Enough to command a brick wall to move. Moreso when it was about his friends. If Yamato decided he'd resolve their conflict – he would.

Taichi didn't deserve this. It was so good to be with Yamato again, but that only made Taichi's guilt a hell of a lot worse. Yamato shouldn't miss him. Taichi's a bitch who didn't let Yamato be the fucking friend he wanted to be for him.

"We talked _today_ , Yamato."

"Not really. You haven't been you for a while now."

' _God…'_ Having Yamato like this…

Setting the mug on a coaster, Taichi mimicked the facial expression of a puppy who had a wee accident on a Persian rug and felt terrible about it. With that same pretty pout, he looked in the opposite direction for a moment – which was what he did when he knew he was guilty, but didn't want to be punished.

He stepped beside Yamato and clumped a hand over Yamato's bare shoulder. Taichi wasn't the best at reassurances. He never knew if what he was saying was good or bad or if he was helping any. But he never, _ever_ wanted Yamato to hurt and he'd do anything to take it away. "I'm sorry. I – Jesus, I was such an arsehole… I am so, _so_ sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you and you _know_ that… God, I'm such a fucking tosser…"

Taichi's grasp was harder than how he usually held Yamato. As though he was afraid that if he won't grip onto Yamato as hard as he can, Yamato would disappear. Even when Taichi was mute, his emotions found other outlets.

"It's fine. Just get over yourself and let's move on from this." If there was one thing Yamato had to admit to himself, it was how he was becoming a big softie. If a while back he would have gone on grilling Taichi for the stupendous calibre of his errors, now Yamato acted bitter only by approximation – like he was admonishing a kid. "But you should really, and I mean _really_ , think more before you do things."

If Taichi were a betting man, he would have lost his pants by now. "… You're not angry?"

"I'm honestly too tired to be angry right now. I don't want to be angry. I want to watch capricious, capacious, grotacious, and ratchet amounts of on-screen violence. Admission is terrific, so I'm glad you know you're an arsehole – you're so many arseholes – but you calling yourself an arsehole is not the same as coping with you being an arsehole. You can bet your balls you're going to tell me why you were such an arsehole, but right now – I. Am. Too. Tired. I'm sure tomorrow you'll get me pissed off at you again, anyway, so we can do it then. Also-" he looked to the door for a moment, swallowed a juicy lump of gob, and turned back at Taichi. "I believe in you. Taichi."

There was every bit of Yamato's unstoppable force in each letter he formed while stringing the last sentence – the one which made Yamato sound like all his bones were on fire. And it filled the space between them. And it filled Taichi.

And he will let it fill him until his heart stops beating.

Yamato continued, determined, "And" he looked away again, giving them both a brief reprieve from himself, "I know you didn't mean to hurt me – even if you managed to be a complete and utter arse in the process. So… like I said, let's move on. For now."

When the quiet which followed abated some and took the intensity with it, a portion of Taichi's depressing frown was reversed. But only a portion. On the one hand, he swore that by the end of the weekend, he and Yamato would go back to being relaxed with each other, as they should. On the other, his gaze was downcast and that co-ordinate between Yamato's feet he was so transfixed on has reminded him more unpleasant thoughts. He felt a bit sick.

"Was Yuri here?" he blurted, more aggressive than he intended.

Yamato's forehead collapsed into a fusion between confusion and irritation, but he just shrugged.

That wasn't any answer at all!

"Did he fuck you?"

Snap. "That's none of your fucking business!"

Taichi got in Yamato's face and almost head-butted him in the process. "Why are you being so defensive?!"

It earned him a stumped look from Yamato. He froze in place, jaw hanging open, and stared at Taichi with a blank face. "You're unbelievable, you know that?!" Yamato turned around, mumbling, "I don't need this fucking shit from you right now…" and was about to storm off before Taichi talked over his regressing back:

"You realise you're making this really simple question extremely awkward, right?" How?! How were they having an argument over this?! It's not shocking or anything, but it's _ridiculous_. Taichi moved his head, trying to scream while at the same time chocking that scream through his teeth. He closed his eyes and took a breath to take it down a notch before looking back at Yamato. "I swear, you get so weird over the stupidest shit."

Oh, Yamato was NOT gonna let Taichi be stupid like this to him. "I'm weird? Why do you need me to give you a detailed report about my sex life – or lack of it thereof?! I don't get it."

"I don't give a fig if you're getting your arse railed by some guy. If you want to go around and advertise how bad you wanna sit on every available dick in the football league, you can go ahead and do it. You wanna fuck them all? Do it. It's a free country, mate. But when you expect me to tell you about every single problem I have when you can't even answer a bloody 'yes' or 'no' question, don't you think you're being a colossal hypocrite?"

Yamato tried pulling the same chunk of snot back into his nose several times and eventually let Taichi wrap his arms around him.

"No, Yuri wasn't here and no, I didn't screw him…" Yamato muttered into Taichi's shoulder.

Sweet mercy, but that answer set all sorts of bubbly to explode inside Taichi. Still, he kept his little victory dance, that he imagined included a cheerleading outfit, to himself.

"Why?"

"We decided to part ways as casual acquaintances on friendly terms."

Taichi nodded into the curve of Yamato's neck. "I'd say I'm sorry it didn't work out, but I honestly am not."

Yamato released a small chuckle. "Me neither," and then it fell off his face, "he is not who I want…."

 _Whoops_ \- Taichi's tiny, inner victory-dancer got a head-shot straight through the temple with a sniper rifle. "Because of whomever you're still in love with?"

"I guess…" Yamato trailed off, pushed Taichi off him, and started picking up clothes from the floor with his toes, toss them till they were about waist-height, catch them, and fold them over the back of the chair.

It's not that Taichi forgot this little detail. Not by a long shot. It's been his silent nightmare for two weeks now, after all. Didn't mean he enjoyed being reminded of it, though. Not to mention talking about it. Basically, Yamato may as well been screaming it right into his ear-drum while stabbing his heart with a machete. His lungs constricted. Still, he tried showing Yamato his best supporting grin. "That person has to be pretty amazing if you're so _bent_ on them."

Yamato ignored the dumb pun and braved a small smile at Taichi, loving him so much for standing where he did and for his warm stare. "I-" he inflated his lungs with so much dunk air, they were about to pop like the balloons playboy girls had surgically attached to their chests, "I think I'm gonna stop wanking in the corner and try something. You know… about that."

So, that feeling when your insides turn into the black pit of doom and despair and eating greasy cheese balls on a carpet covered with mysterious urine stains, only to chase it with bad vodka? Yeah, that was Taichi's disposition right now.

But what could he do? What do most people do when everything is slipping away? Stay and fight or avoid wars they can't win? He figured he should start by being a friend.

"Do you wanna talk?"

Taichi was so obvious, Yamato was in agony. With a sharp whip of his neck which seemed bloody painful, Yamato pinned Taichi with a resolute look forged with steel. "Only if you finally tell me what got your knickers in a twist, Taichi. I can't see you like this! I think we've been friends long enough to stop walking circles around each other." He clamped his hands to his face and growled into them in frustration. "Taichi, we _have_ to _communicate_! Please, don't be so selfish and stop taking everything on yourself. Have you considered how _I_ feel watching you go through these things, alone?! If something's upsetting you, I want you to tell me. Otherwise, I just feel useless. If it's me, I want to know what I'm doing wrong so I could fix it. If someone else is giving you grief… well, I'll give them ten times more grief. Me too. I need to do better. I shouldn't have pushed you when you said you needed space and I sure as fuck can't snap at you whenever I feel like it."

Taichi's face was moulded around his rising lips into something in the veins of compassion. "I'm used to it. Besides, when you really push the arse-hole metre, you usually apologise. And what happened to 'too tired to get angry'?"

"You piss me off!" But then Yamato shook his head. "I am _not_ angry, Taichi. I am worried. You have no idea what you being so patient with my bullshit means to me, but that still doesn't make it alright! I will get better at this if you will, Taichi –"

"We _are_ better at this-" Taichi interrupted, but cut himself off, "aren't we…?"

Seeing the confusion marring Taichi's dropping features and mixing with that small need of his to make Yamato happy, made Yamato's posture sag. He didn't want to force Taichi into anything Taichi wasn't ready for, either.

"Don't be sad, Taichi…" Yamato regretted saying this the moment it flew out of his mouth. Just because he royally fucking hated seeing a sad Taichi didn't mean he should be a twat and delegitimise it. If Taichi fancied being sad, he was welcome to it. Yamato will deal with that.

Also, it's not like Taichi was wrong in his assessment. He and Yamato hadn't had a real fight in years. Their arguments? Solving them had become _that_ easy. They only made their relationship more exciting. He and Taichi didn't need to agree. Disagreeing or not, they had the other by his side nonetheless.

"No, fuck it. We _are_ better at this, Taichi. We are. It's just," he complacently curled his own hand around Taichi's – around the one still parked on his shoulder. "I don't want to see you run away. Least of all from _me_ …" He squeezed the tan fingers between his own. "Please, Taichi?"

Ouch _._ Taichi didn't stand a chance against that overwhelming honesty of Yamato's from the moment he entered the room. But how the fuck was he supposed to confess right after Yamato shared his plans for confessing to someone _else_? He'd die!

But he still couldn't stay in his gloom & doom mode because he was too occupied with loving the way Yamato always reassured him in his own way.

"Agreed. Dibs!" Taichi may have wanted to be the selfless friend Yamato needed, but he also needed to be selfish about his wants _._ Just because he didn't expect Yamato to mirror his feelings, didn't mean he could stand listening to him reciting bloody prose about another person. Not as pent up as Taichi was at the moment, anyhow.

"Fair. Now?" Yamato heard the familiar overtone of fired-up conviction weaved in Taichi's exclamation earlier. It was the same one Taichi used back in the Digital World. Or when he talked-up his mates before a game. Or when he and Yamato were having yet another silly squabble. It released pleasant shudders up and down Yamato's spine – same as always.

For how long did Yamato wait for this day? And Abra Kadabra – there's Taichi! Right at his door out of his own volition.

That was Part One of the plan. Part Two –Taichi will say something and Yamato will say something and, generally, some talking would be involved. Maybe even seduction. Part Three – hopefully, they'd drop all the talking and jump straight into crazy, good sex.

What's more – Taichi going first was perfect. Yamato still didn't quite polish all the details of Part Two to a satisfactory result. Confessing emotions was not exactly his field of expertise and he lamented his inability to just punch them into Taichi.

"Nah. If you don't mind, I hoped to stay the weekend. I still owe you one batch of washed dishes and we could sort out our mess better after a few extra sleeping hours."

"Yes, you do – more than dishes – and yes, we could."

"You're being so amazing about this…" _'Do not kiss him. Do NOT.'_ "I fucking love you. Thank you."

The admission embarrassed him, but doing this for Taichi made Yamato happy. In a simple, basic way. Just happy. "I love you too. And, Taichi?"

"Yeah?"

"Whatever it is, you're not alone in it."

Taichi didn't even imagine it was possible to want to kiss someone like he wanted to kiss Yamato right now. The gratefulness inside him was overwhelming. Taichi was made weak at the knees and a curious shade of Terracotta in the face.

"I know…" he said in whispered notes, and they let their unique branch of silence pad the room.

Reclaiming his coffee only to find there was none of it left barring a brown chunk which induced gastronomically unfriendly associations, Taichi redirected his hand and went for the wine instead.

He chugged a few and dangled the bottle in front of Yamato, all proper chipper again. "So, what plans did I interrupt?"

"Marathoning as many of our favourites as humanly possible before passing out."

"I'm in on it."

With that in mind, the next two hours found them swinging wine while sucked into a universe of scenes composed of varying degrees of insanity flicking on the screen.

Pulling his legs under him, Yamato rested his ankles on his thighs. Somewhere along the line of Paul Dano using Daniel Radcliffe as a human farting jet ski, he and Taichi had a meaningful debate about film remakes.

"… It doesn't matter how good the new thing is. It could be a masterpiece starring Merill Streep and Daniel Day Louis but it won't be the same because _you_ 're not the same. We are not ten year old kids any longer."

When Taichi turned to answer, he found Yamato tweaking with the small mechanisms of his digivice, held between his fingers.

Taichi could just imagine Yamato giving his digital, canine partner a little kiss on that cute doggy nose when no one was looking. In Yamato's head, it was like: 'who's a pure, wholesome, unselfish, sentient digital being?! You are, Gabumon!' – or that's how Taichi pictured it. Yamato did kiss Gabumon on the nose once, six years back when he went with Daisuke and the youngsters to save the Digimon. Gabumon blurted that story to Taichi accidently and Taichi had enough tact to avoid bringing it up in a conversation later.

The memory wasn't enough to banish the emptiness seeing Yamato like this caused, though. "Aren't we…?"

Yamato started at him, those telling features of his waiting for Taichi to elaborate.

"I mean, yeah, some things change and so do our circumstances, granted, but others don't. Since my age prefix changed, I sort of started thinking that, in our core, we are all still children, eventually. Everything around it is just layers of personality and experience. Maybe this is just me being self-serving, but I don't think who we are now is separated from what we used to be. These are the memories from those years which make us who we are today, right? I want twenty year old Taichi to be an adult ten year old Taichi can be proud of."

"Insightful." Yamato made a funny face at Taichi, like he tried eating a face lifter. "Still reading football manga?"

"You bet I am!"

Taichi understood the need to hold on to your childhood, when things were simple and every small detail was amazing and the world was big and wide and never-ending. For them even more so than for anybody else.

Yamato side-eyed his digivice again. Words gushed out of him before he could press the breaks' pedal. What has only ever seethed deep beneath the surface so far, became too real. "I miss him so much, Taichi. I don't want to lose any more important things in my life. I don't want to lose anything precious. I don't want to be alone. Sometimes…" he swallowed "I just want to go back to those days and stay there, with Gabumon and Agumon and you. I don't want to become some glum adult who used to be a Chosen Child and forgot what's important to him. I don't want to change."

He didn't know what hit him. Only that when he said it, it became a truth. Yamato missed Gabumon so much. Someone he could talk to without a semblance of judgement. It's not like he thought Taichi, of all people, or any of his friends, were judgemental of him – but they were humans. Gabumon was there for him when no one else was and the bond between them was as pure as only the bond between child and Digimon could be.

"You won't," Taichi said to him, dead serious, "and I won't. I think I can safely assume that no matter what happens you and I will stay together and always run towards each other, friendship and courage?"

Yamato let it thrash over in his head until he smiled in a rare, pure way, giving Taichi all the reply he needed.

"Kinda like when we suddenly see that series on the telly which used to be our favourite as kids and realise it's still pretty darn awesome."

Yamato peeked at his digivice again. "So – you say we still have a chance?"

"There is always a chance. Kou even said once the Digital World is somehow linked to wishes, you know? Who knows what can happen. And the fact we're having this conversation is proof that, deep down, we are just wide eyed boys dead set on a new adventure."

With this, Taichi gently took the digivice from Yamato and set it on the bedside table. "Yamato, no matter what happens, no matter where you are, you are always my best friend. You won't fight alone. I believe in you too and," he brushed Yamato's finger-pads with his own, cushions to cushions, "I _need_ you."

He loved following Yamato's eyes. To chart the countless emotions flashed in a single narrowing or dilation of his pupils. No one had eyes like that. "Gabumon too. Even separated, you will always be together. But we don't need to hang on nostalgia. We should be happy here and now. That's what they want for us. Remember that day? I said that if we wait too long, we'll be adults before we know it. Today, though, I think that even then, when we grow up, we are still us, will always be us, and will always be the Chosen Children. Nothing can change that. Even if by biological standards, all the cells in our bodies had been replaced by now and we are whole new humans altogether, I want to think the core which makes people who they are doesn't change. Not really. It's the axis around which everything else revolves. The deep anchor each person defines as 'me'. Growing up doesn't mean we are letting go – it means we can connect in new ways and be brave enough to let them change us and evolve as people. We can become even more brilliant than we were before. Yes, I had the time of my life as a child and yes, everything was fun and simple and awesome, even when we were fighting monsters, and I got to be 'the one with the crest of courage' – but I _love_ who I am today, as a person, much more. Growing up just means we get to revisit all those things we love from a fresh perspective. Maybe the world becomes more dangerous – but also sexy. There is no such thing as 'too old'." His momentum subsided in favour of his best goofy expression. "But, if you want something, don't wait for it. With the way we're going, the likelihood of any one of us being hit by a random, renegade piano is unreasonably high."

Yamato cracked up. "Bloody deep, ain't you? Who the hell gave you permission to be so mature?"

Taichi grinned wide enough for his face to be sliced in two and for the entire ossified content of his mouth to show. He pushed his fringe back dramatically, like a hair gell commercial modal. "Babe… I'm fabulous."

One mutually uncontrollable laughter episode later, Taichi wiped tears from his eyes and tried filtering a question through the remnants of his snorts. "Want to try visiting them soon? Agu and Gabu?"

"I think I'd like that." Yamato was glad Taichi had his eyes on the screen again, because Yamato couldn't stop himself from smiling at the tan profile so wide it hurt. "But is there something _you_ want, Taichi?"

"I do. I just need to figure how I go about it." No hesitation.

"Then are you afraid of something?"

Taichi lifted his face till his own reflection stared back at him from a pure, blue background. "I want to say no, but that will be a big, fat lie."

Yamato put his hand on top of Taich's. "So am I. That's why, hold on tight so I won't run away."

Taichi never wanted to kiss someone so much in his entire life. And he wanted to kiss Yamato plenty. He didn't spend a fraction of a second thinking before corresponding in like, assigning his thumb to the top of Yamato's knuckles. The warmth passing between them said so much more than words would.

Between them, this was a gesture which would transcend time.

"The same goes for me."

Taichi's hands always gave Yamato such a sense of security. Taichi gave him a sense of security. That's why he always freaked out when Taichi acted scared; and when he was sad.

Even so – "Oi, Taichi?"

"Yeah?"

Yamato's fingers glided into the gaps between Taichi's own when he whispered, "even _you_ are allowed to be afraid sometimes..."

' _God, Yama…'_ Andsuddenly, Taichi was very vulnerable. It wasn't so uncommon when he was with Yamato, but… How can someone, who so easily chooses to live his life from disconnection, just come out and give Taichi what needed when he himself didn't know what it was?

Yamato was… Yamato was Yamato. If Taichi could hold his hand like this and make him laugh… that's really what he wanted.

"Thank you, Yama…" he talked past that little crack in his voice, ' _I love you, Yamato,'_ and past that little tell-tale sting in his lower eyelids. Past the relief that left his mistakes in the past.

"Yama _to._ " But correcting Taichi won't help any since it never did, or ever will, against Taichi's stubbornness. Because Yamato didn't care. He liked giving more of his strings for Taichi to pull on. _'I love you too.'_

"Say, Taichi, are we having a moment here?"

"Or something… "

Fingers tangled, silence spread again. It let Taichi reminisce.

"The battle against Crotch-Vandemon was a riot, huh?"

" _Crotch_ -Vandemon?"

"We killed the guy by kicking him in the balls. It was the most Freudian escapade I'd ever seen. He earned the title."

Yamato laughed.

Long, dexterous fingers brushed the fringes of Taichi's hair. When Taichi followed them till their bones connected to a hand, then a wrist, then an arm, he found himself being the target of one of Yamato's sweetest smiles.

"You know, since I've come to know who you really are, even back when we were eleven, I thought you were the kind of person who can really make things happen. Maybe make everything happen. If there is one thing I learnt since I met you, is to try before saying I can't do something."

"What changed?"

"Nothing. I still think that. That much hasn't changed about you at all."

"Well, when I first met you I thought you were the most wicked-awesome kid I ever met. I wanted to be around you and know everything about you. You always gave me this unimaginable drive to go and do things."

"And now?"

"Same for you. But I also think you're the sexiest son of a bitch in the universe."

Taichi couldn't believe _that_ has just come out of his mouth. _'Oh shit!'_

Yamato almost toppled over. "Are you hitting on me?!"

"More like shitting with you."

' _Good save.'_


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Come – Fire

They laughed a lot. Wrestled once – till Yamato had Taichi in a headlock and the latter had to forfeit. When the evening progressed into the drowned out sounds of splattering matter on the screen, Yamato cuddled slightly into Taichi. It was hard to resist; Taichi was so outlandishly warm.

During the motions he was required to perform to scratch his leg, Taichi's fingers found Yamato's knee. That was something else. Yamato had very little body hair for a man and his skin was addictively smooth. Like that sleek, shiny material expensive French lingerie is made of.

He melted into a formerly-human, droopy pile on the bed and slouched into Yamato. His free hand groped for the wine, insistently resisting the urge to push itself under Yamato's clothes to feel up his hips. After some king-sized gulps, Taichi turned the bottle in his hands to read the label.

"For a cheap one, this piss's really good. It's like a fermented hug in a glass container."

The edges of Yamato's lips dutifully arced up into his cheeks – a variation to his stoic face which was busy evaluating Edward Norton's beating the shit out of himself.

Taichi looked at him, looked at the bottle, and back up at him again.

"So, how's it like?"

"Bloody hell, aren't you chatty. How what is like, Taichi?" Additionally to the obvious awkwardness they were ploughing through, Taichi was acting the nutter, sliding between being the cheery king of la-la-land and Edgar Allen Poe pre-opium.

"Taking it up the arse. You like it?"

Taichi went back to study the rosy substance in the container.

Yamato's shoulder's rose around him to cradle his sinking head and shade his re-emerging flush. He grabbed the strings sticking out from the seams of his blanket so that he, too, had something to occupy his hands with.

"I don't see how my proctologic anecdotes are any of your concerns, Taichi."

"Don't be such a wanker… Please?"

Frankly, Taichi had no idea where this masochistic urge to hear what _other_ mendid to _his_ Yamato came from. Maybe it was a weird combo of morbid curiosity and the need for some first-hand fapping material manifesting itself in a very twisted way.

At some point Yamato was extremely tempted to tell Taichi off but good, but his blud was _so_ off. Taichi's been giving him the kind of melancholic, held-back expression Yamato usually only saw in the mirror. "How should I know…?" Yamato ground out, only instead of coming off as pissed off, he was mostly just timid.

Taichi's eyes jumped over to him one last time. "In the game, you said-"

"That I'm a _whore-coholic_. Not that I've been buggered by some bloke shoving his junk up my arse. It was a pun, Taichi. I wanted you guys off my back."

"Whoa, with the way you strut, that's on the same scale as a religious miracle."

"I do _not_ strut!"

"You keep on telling that to yourself, baby."

Yamato humphed against having his patience tugged at. "Look, don't get it wrong. I got down and dirty many times, partook in lots of nasty, sometimes with more than one person at a time, and I'm hardly virtuous with the things I may say yes to. I got the softest mouth and loosest jaw bone in our combined contact lists. One time, I swear, some mid-life-crisis aunt payed me five digits and sucked my toes for forty minutes. I pinned a guy to a wall and almost fucked him on it after knowing him for half an hour. One bloke even took me to the back of the stage just to get off on m-"

"I seriously don't need the gory details, mate."

Feeling small and ugly, Yamato looked away and barked something which wasn't laughter. "You know, I don't even remember most of those people or half those times. At eighteen, I'll give you a blow-job because you're hot and I'm horny but at twenty it's almost dehumanizing. I'm not proud in any of that. And you get used a lot. Especially if you want to do music. That year in my life was pretty messed up…" he shook his head. "There is zero passion in it, yeah? It's about as romantic as ordering fast food in a drive-through." He sniffed the air and hardly swallowed it down. "And, fuck, why do I always have to get it up my arse?!" He covered his mouth with his fingers, using them like a substitute for a surgical mask. "I'm sometimes surprised I'm still alive..."

In those blue eyes, that almost never cried, were tears he tried pulling back into his tear-ducts and hide.

Barring Gabumon, Taichi was the only one with whom Yamato cracked like this or confessed the shittiest bits of his life. So Taichi stroked his shoulder and tried to listen.

Yamato wanted to tell Taichi he was just tipsy and bit tired. Tell him not to worry. Tell him he would be alright because he always had been. What came out instead was, "… and sometimes I wonder what happened to me…"

Deliberating with himself whether handling the situation would be better with a supportive hug or crude humour to diffuse the blues, Taichi ended up with an arm around Yamato's shoulders, shaking him lightly. "Shut up..."

"Get off it, Taichi. If I wanted pity I would have added the details…" He was actually grateful, though, and kept Taichi's arm secured on his shoulders when Taichi wasn't sure if he should pull it away or not. For a few seconds, Yamato considered to straight up build a blanket-fort and barricade himself in cotton fluffiness. Hey, it used to work fifteen years ago and he wasn't optimistic about the outcomes of his future right now. But he can't.

"…I didn't let anyone put it in. So… happy?"

"Yes. And – Why?" Taichi asked, caution his forte, weary from any potential lash-out.

"Cause they were all arse-bandits of the ugly and old type! I have standards, believe it or not. These blokes…" he gurgled, his spit clogging his throat. "But, going back to your question, from my research-"

" _Research,_ eh Yamato?" Taichi wiggled his eyebrows sheepishly.

" _Experience_ -"

Still smirking like a certified moron, Taichi prodded, "with…?"

Yamato jabbed Taichi's thigh with his index and ignored his yap. "It's kinda like having a major dump trying to crawl its way back into your arse."

One brief snigger later, Taichi still wasn't sure what he actually expected from Yamato's answer. That Yamato would tell him he waited for him? But he did wonder if, in some tipsy-turvey way, that was Yamato-jargon for 'I'm actually waiting for that someone I love'.

On the one hand, Taichi wouldn't put it past him, on the other _-'nah.'_

"Taichi?"

"Mmm?"

"I meant what I said earlier. I'll wait till you're ready to talk. But… mmm… if you can give me a general direction… you know… what to think… so I could think… and shit."

"… You know. Me. You." Taichi's locked-in breath sieved through his nostrils and Yamato watched him. "Some non-platonic things I think." He side-eyed Yamato. "You're important to me."

Yamato nodded. Maybe the motion would help evacuating his high temperature through his ears. "Yeah. Ok… Take your time to figure it out."

"Thanks." And Taichi bounced back as if his brain skipped this entire last minute. "Anyway, what happened to the days the arse place was a dirty, exit-only?"

He could practically hear Yamato's own smirk being born. "It's still dirty but in the fun sense. It got reassigned to the place _courageous_ people do the nasty in."

"And yet you're still a virgin up your arse?"

Yamato didn't care if Taichi phrased the sentence the way he did just to be a prick. Thinking about Taichi having kinky imaginations which included him was hot-beyond-hot. Yamato squirmed, trying to close his legs, and planted his chin on the root of his palm, craning his neck up and answering from under his yellow fringe.

"Oh, yeah. I am very nice and tight, Taichi." Yamato used his sex voice and demonstratively gave himself a slap on the ass. It was too easy. He leaned further in, warm exhales teasing a sensitive spot behind Taichi's ear, toying with the lines of shameless flirting. "But also young and malleable. And I _love_ deep play. Why? Want to do something about it, _courageous_ leader of mine?"

Taichi laughed hotly, the colour red erupting all over his face. The word _'precious'_ sparkedin Yamato's head.

But Taichi liked Yamato daring and racy or the way Yamato got loose and sassy and bold around him. "Well, according to my football mates, having a cute, little bum such as yours around me and not using it is a waste of perfectly good resources." Taichi levelled his eyes with Yamato's, challenge in his enlarged pupils. "Just admit it, Yamato. Just say you're waiting for the right guy to open up your booty."

' _And then say you want it to be me, Yama.'_

"Fuck off."

After Taichi dodged the next swat, Yamato asked, "and what about you?"

"What about me?" The football ace leered at him like a little shit. "I'm a striker – I put balls in goals, not the other way around."

"Oh?" Yamato abducted the bottle from Taichi's hand, pale fingers meeting tan ones for one second too much. "So, between the sheets – would you say you're the primal, break-the-bed type or the careful lovey-dovey type?"

He threw his head back for the long swig, that dangerous expression still glued to his face as he gauged the well-defined, mocha jaw he positively knew tasted sweeter than any wine in the world.

For Taichi, some uncomfortable wriggling followed when Yamato pulled his plump lips off the bottle with a soft 'smack-smack' sound, and returned it to Taichi.

Mimicking the sleaze, Taichi followed up with, "I'm not really selective. As long as I get to stick it in, you get me?" He took back the bottle and blamed its contents when his eagerness to deliver a precise, diligent demonstration did a weird spin on his mood. He came out asking, like a shy child, "oi, Yamato. If I were into men, would you have had sex with me?"

It's not exactly that Taichi expected Yamato to have a go at his jaw, but he appreciated Yamato a lot for squaring his shoulders and continuing watching the film while indulging Taichi with a thought-out reply.

"I need to know what exactly you're asking me here. Is it 'am I fit enough to satisfy the average cock-loving bloke's sexual taste buds?' or is it 'will Yamato, very specifically, be interested in shagging me?' – which one?"

"I… both I guess?"

"Yes."

Both of them knew that conversation was over.

They were also becoming comfortable with the sort of warm haze only wine brings. Not drunk per se, just heady with the pleasant thrums of heat blooming from their dilated blood vessels and the soft cushions beneath them.

"We are so close, Taichi…" Yamato crossed his arms only to uncross them and gently hugged a pillow instead.

"We are."

Yamato didn't know if it was done absentmindedly, but Taichi's fingertips drifted along Yamato's thigh and lazily grazed his skin every time Taichi moved. Each faint motion was a torrent of electric surges chafing against Yamato's trimmed senses, making him shift and making him hot.

When the scene featuring Willem DeFao in a hooker costume came up, Taichi swivelled towards Yamato, boring at the side of his face with what must have been a vain attempt at intelligent contemplation. He didn't say anything otherwise, though.

Yamato waited for him to start verbalizing his issue, but when that didn't happen, he took the initiative. "Can I help you, blud? Lost anything on my face you need back?"

"Well, I was thinking-"

"That's a dangerous hobby for you."

"Hardy har. Was thinking you could rock that dress better than DeFao."

"The fuck brought that up?"

"I'm just saying you'll look way hotter than him, is all," Taichi murmured, defensive against Yamato's stare.

Charismatic though the man was, it wasn't exactly hard to pull off a dress better than Willem DeFao. What Yamato heard instead – or pretended to have heard for his momentary convenience – was Taichi calling him hot. What does it mean? What… What does it mean?!

Quiet self-analysis led Yamato to believe he blushed harder than biologically possible. ' _Fuck'_ if this wasn't ridiculous. He needed to regain his cool and his sense of self-worth.

"You think I'm hot?"

Attempt at 'cool': a sub-par success.

Taichi made a face at him. "Yes, and you bloody well know that! Global warming is happening because the friggin' _sun_ feels like overcompensating when it shines on you. Do remind me, how many straight guys asked you out this month?"

"Pretty much as many as your back alley blow-jobs."

Full-on grump mode turned on, Taichi grunted. "Shitty blow jobs," he corrected and gave Yamato an equally grumpy look. "I think my dick is becoming desensitized."

Those humongous brown eyes were the muttered spell which ignited Yamato from inside and made him do something he'd never done before, cut loose, and act without restraints. His body moved without his permission in a way it wouldn't have dared a day ago. Not without the coercion of blood in his wine stream. But he was tipsy and giggly and flirty and very cute and horny and all those things were overriding his rational.

He was totally out of himself.

So he rose to his knees, leaning over Taichi as though he was reaching for the wine bottle again. Only instead of grasping the transparent neck, Yamato halted midway and supported the weight of his upper body on the palms of his hands. Those conveniently rimmed Taichi's thighs.

Inserting the tip of his thumb under a piece of Taichi's shirt that wasn't tucked in, just that tiny bit, in the most innocent, inconspicuous way possible, let Yamato caress such warm skin there.

What this did to Taichi should be absolutely illegal. Hedged in by the delicate position, the temperature around him sky-rocketed and he was so hot. The room was stifling, airless, and too small.

Somehow, Taichi didn't push Yamato away. Plump lips skimmed across his ear, rubbing heated breaths against Taichi's flushed cheeks. Luring with a voice which dropped into a seductive octave Yamato only used when singing forbidden songs in the darkness of his bedroom, sheets of honey-dipped velvet on gravel, Yamato spoke to him… or into him. "You know…" he breathed into Taichi, warm and alcoholic.

That voice he had… _'dammit, Yama…'_

Taichi risked a look and – _'shit' –_ was reminded of how little Yamato had on him.

The jumper Yamato wore rode above his navel, deliciously extending the view of sensual, creamy skin pierced by metallic jewels. The fabric fell away from him and a single, small peep downwards allowed Taichi to feed upon the unobstructed view of Yamato's nude body. All his body. A body which so happened to be arching _obscenely_ into a suggestive pose exactly where Taichi wanted Yamato to sit most. Sit – then ride.

"I bet…" Another impossibly hot and sultry exhale falling against the sensitivity of Taichi's nape, "I can use my mouth…" Yamato purred, stirring a hot swelling between Taichi's thighs, "way better than any of those silly girls," he finished.

Their eyes met for only a brief second but ' _yiykes!_ ' was that hardcore! Taichi could be dying for all he knew, right inside the clefts of Yamato's smile-lines, the pores on his nose, the ridges of his rising and falling ribcage. And he would let Yamato kill him.

Before Taichi had a chance to react, Yamato really did grab the wine and slung back to his side of the bed as if nothing happened, laughing his face off. Thought it was some bloody joke, the bastard. Well, Taichi's dick begged to differ. All the while, that voice of Yamato's was a silver chime which wreaked havoc on Taichi's lapsing control and made everything erratic. Yet perfectly sensible.

God! What a fucking cock-tease! Did Yamato know what he was doing to him? That Taichi's urge to close the infuriating gap between their bodies and jump Yamato's bones started costing him sanity points? Did he care?

Those questions weren't resolved for him. Yamato restored his seriousness, clouded with liquor as it was, and pinned Taichi with that same blue whose deeper meanings Taichi couldn't divulge in his current state.

"What do you want, Taichi?"

Taichi was not up for the transition. He snagged the wine again instead, and fixed his eyes back on the telly, not deigning to give a reply.

"Go on then," Yamato nudged him.

The few smart words Taichi brought with him to face Yamato have evaporated. Poof – and they were gone. "It's nothing."

Cold sober, like he didn't just drink half a bottle of wine – or like he didn't just chat Taichi up – Yamato gripped Taichi by the shoulder, holding him in place with one hand. With the other, he locked Taichi's jaw in a cage made of fingers and moved his face till it was in line with Yamato's, straight on.

"Friends standing face to face don't tell lies."

Yamato was right, so Taichi opted to get up and not look at his face. It would have been a decent plan had his legs not failed to follow his momentum. He fell back to the bed, spilling a bit of the vino on his jeans.

At least his clumsiness had merits, seeing as it immediately broke the tension. Yamato _did_ just drink half a bottle of wine, after all, and barked, laughing.

"Just how drunk are you, Taichi?!"

Taichi observed Yamato's pretty frame, still convulsing from his fit. What Taichi said came as easy as the smile it supplemented and the raspy tone it was told with. "I would say I'm drunk enough to be robbed off my inhibitions, but sober enough to give my legal consent and make sex happen should the need arise. If I want to…"

"Do you want to?"

"Huh?"

"What do you want, Taichi?"

"Mmm…"

Too smashed to keep a straight face, Yamato made more laugh-like noises between inhales. "Classy AF, Taichi!"

What Yamato actually had on his mind, however, were firecrackers. This evening moved rapidly from him considering his words to him calculating the chances of Taichi laying him!

In retribution, Taichi ambushed Yamato's waist, tackling him to the bed in a glorious sneak attack of tickles under the battle cry: "For digi and dumplings!"

"Hey! Hey! No!" Yamato yelped and tried to combine his inability to stop laughing with an attempt to escape. When that failed, he tried pushing Taichi's face away, kick him off him, and hurl death threats at him.

After a few more minutes spent as a rolling pile of jittering appendages, Yamato finally ceded. He and Taichi ended up lying on his bed, dealing with the aftermath of runaway giggles, teary eyes, and harsh breaths.

When Yamato spun around, it was into a universe of molten brown. Too huge, too bottomless, too sexy, too sweet irises poured into his. They were still filled with child-like innocence which didn't waver and that attracted Yamato _so_ much. Those, for once, looked at him like they would never look at anything else again, with… with _so much_.

He couldn't even word it. Just feel it.

Feel how it made him warm and silly and brilliant and needed and beautiful – so beautiful. Made him forget his worries like only Taichi could.

They were supposed to have some sort of a talk, but Yamato was more of an action person than a word person and his boy-hormones were kicking in. Just like that, Yamato may as well throw all his plans out the window and only be immersed in everything he was being offered in this fragile moment.

He became so aware of all these tiny trivialities. Like how Taichi had such thick, pretty eyelashes.

Like how this additional weight on his side of the bed was a new experience for Yamato. Like how there were warm hands under Yamato's clothes which lingered along the sides of his body and touched him softly with crass thumbs. For a moment, both he and Taichi followed Taichi's hands into their resting place on Yamato's hips. It was such a natural place for them to be lodged in.

This was now or never. This was the real thing. "Taichi, what do you want…?" Yamato asked again, all bedroom eyes and terrified.

They were so close now. They were too close. The wild waves behind Yamato's eyes crashed to the shore, but that distorted flame belonged to Taichi and ' _damn'_ , things were getting a little intense. The body under Taichi was inviting, warm, rising and falling with small, breathless pants, and _'holy shit'_ it was so lovely.

Tendrils fell in a yellow mess across Yamato's face. Taichi didn't notice he was playing with a few blonde strands until he moved them behind Yamato's bejewelled ear, realising only when their absence was noted.

Slowly, so slowly, Yamato put his hand on top of Taichi's and carried it under his jumper, inviting Taichi deeper, to explore his bare body, as every bit of that intensity poured into another moment and then the next.

Dizzied by Yamato's, and his own, pulses pumping anywhere their arteries had a reach, Taichi pushed up back into a sitting position and pulled Yamato along with him. "Soon. Film first."

Yamato didn't know what to do with himself at this superb moment of sexual denial. And what exactly was supposed to happen after the film? Were they going to talk? Were they going to shag? Were they going to wear overly-ruffled dresses and gangster shades while trying to rap to "Mary Had a Little Lamb"?

"Please pass the wine…" he said, almost inaudibly and mostly dejected.

After obeying, Taichi's arm moved around Yamato's shoulders again and pulled him into Taichi's stiff chest as the boys continued watching the film.

Did Taichi even realise how… not… how that gesture was like for Yamato? If nothing else, Yamato's short lapse into erotic-frustration-inducing confusion was utterly abandoned. Friction caused his goddamn _nipples_ to go into a rock-hard "boing" and perk up. Now, every time Yamato moved, they rubbed against his jumper and made him feel _all sorts_.

Especially with those little, soft touches from Taichi again. Thumb caressing invisible circles to the base of Yamato's head, gently stroking his hair before falling to the rendezvous point where his neck met his shoulder. Palm comfortably rubbing the small of his back. Fingers dipping down his spine.

Taichi's hands were rough. The coarse pads of his fingers moved to trace the fraying neckline of Yamato's jumper with the inability to stay still. Occasionally, they ghosted his neck, smoothing down his collarbone, the clavicles of his breastbones, and the sharp edges of the other bones protruding under the skin of his shoulders. Eventually, Taichi's digits began edging the stark skin of Yamato's back and scrabbling with the fabric of his pullover to give Taichi further access.

Taichi risked shooting Yamato a look – or rather, a close inspection. Yamato had a wonderful neck. And a really, _really_ fantastic skin. Taichi also liked Yamato's spine a lot. It had a good posture. Generally, Yamato's entire jaw-neck-shoulder proportions were top-notch.

"You know, Yamato, you have one hell of a look on your mug. You got the best face. It's screaming 'I want you to break me. Break me and screw me'."

"So break me and screw me..."

Yamato shuddered when Taichi stroked along his sternum and deep into his chest. No longer shy finger-pads, but entire, wanting hands caressing him sensually, skin to skin. Yamato sensed his own body-heat – that's how close they were.

' _Fuck!'_ Taichi wasa complete cock-tease! Though Yamato shared the blame here, he reckoned, every single time he shifted around or leaned – almost fell – into whatever Taichi was doing to him so he could let Taichi go on.

"Why are you doing this…?" Yamato asked, wispy voice verging on a purr.

That sound. That sound coming out of Yamato's throat. That sound almost gave Taichi a heart attack.

He wanted more.

"Cause you like it…" Taichi brushed a few yellow hairs with his nose when he whispered into Yamato's ear, inhaling Yamato's conditioner and pheromones.

This scratchy bass wasn't Taichi's voice. Whoever allowed him to sound like this should go to prison. His hot breath fanned over Yamato's face, so near and taunting, it was painful. With that sweet voice, Taichi's audible words were irrelevant. They were merely the upper layer of something much more personal that was _almost_ dirty and Yamato wanted him to continue talking like this to him. He wanted Taichi to make him his. He wanted him to do it now. It was the perfect aphrodisiac. He couldn't care less about Taichi's weird indecision. He couldn't think at all.

"I know you hate it when people touch you, but I also know when you're actually enjoying it. You can stop acting tough. Or, do you really want me to stop…?" Taichi made the path, through Yamato's earlobe, to the base of his white neck. Busy, _busy_ fingers sketched imaginary figures under the pelvic bone that peaked over Yamato's boxers, eager to slither under all that grey to claim the creamy pale beneath it.

Gooseflesh broke over Yamato's skin and – oh, Taichi _loved_ that reaction.

"No… it's nice…"

"Then what's the fucking problem?"

Yamato didn't answer, but he was extremely aware of any patch of flesh connecting them and every patch which didn't. He managed to tell their area, volume, and square value. All he could feel was Taichi's skin on his and how much more of it he wanted. In Taichi's palms, Yamato's entire body was one huge, hypersensitive, erogenous zone.

"Good, so shut up," Taichi finished.

Yamato fought off a new surge of heat that was working its way to his face because – screw it! Two can play this game and ' _for fuck's sake!'_ he absolutely refused to lose to Taichi on this one!

"Like hell I'll let you look down on me." Yamato retracted the hand which so far was trapped between his and Taichi's bodies and moved it along the small of Taichi's back till he found the solid waist line.

Much as he did two weeks ago, Yamato caressed lazy spirals into the crisp twill stretching so adequately along Taichi's taut physique. With every streak, his motions became longer and more involved – a teasing gentleness.

"Taichi?" Yamato used his positively sinful tone again, and he used it right on the flection at the end of Taichi's stiff neck with every hot and breathy eviction from his lungs.

"I told you to shut up." Taichi meant it. He felt very caged and hard and aching.

Of course Yamato ignored him. "Say 'fuck'…" he accentuated the 'fuck', drawing its letters to seductive lengths, and touched Taichi more. Taichi was all hard angles and harsh shapes.

Taichi was still for a moment. He probably shouldn't – but he wanted to. Yamato was irresistible even when he wasn't scantily clad. More so when he looked like the epitome of sex. His hands on Taichi's body excited Taichi beyond control and at that instance Taichi wanted him like he didn't want anything before in his life. He moved his lips closer to the spangled shell of Yamato's ear, as though he was sharing something only Yamato was meant to know.

"Fuck."

It was almost like Taichi was having sex with him through his voice and Yamato's entire body was feeling it.

He slowly released the cloth of Taichi's shirt from its confines within his belt. When Taichi didn't say anything, only blushed prettily – making Yamato feel bloody victorious – Yamato let his pointing finger deliver calculatedly idle, wondering licks to the surface of the newly exposed skin.

His motions were tiny. Just enough to be there. Just enough to make Taichi go insane.

"Say it again."

Yamato's head finally gave in and fell on Taichi's shoulder, his side-fringe sweeping across one blue eye. He only raised it when he coaxed more dirty words from Taichi. In this strangely choreographed position, which was almost a hug, but not, Yamato found himself being comforted, surrounded by the familiar scent of Taichi's specific fabric softener as he was. It was kinda childish in a sense, he reckoned. A bit out of context. But like this was nice.

"Fuck."

It's been long now since Taichi's hands lost themselves in what used to be off-limits beneath the knitted texture of Yamato's jumper, mapping the ridges of Yamato's spinal column and nudity.

"Taichi?"

''Fuck."

Warm fingers skidded from Yamato's curved hips to his waist, pulling fabric away from him, gently slipping onto his tender tummy, and tracing soft circles around his belly button. During every iteration, they tugged at the petit silver ball piercing through it, playing with Yamato's skin.

This friction of their bodies, accompanied with hot breath upon his neck and the non-stop game they were playing, when Yamato was so fragile and all he wanted was for Taichi to screw him senseless, was like a slow-boiling torture for Yamato. He got off on every second of it. And there – his pinky probed the rim of Taichi's jeans.

"Again."

The curious little digit lifted the denim out of its way and sneakily tunneled inside. Taichi sucked in air like mad, but he didn't interrupt Yamato's quest into his undies.

So Yamato went on, introducing more and more parts of himself to Taichi. Until they were met with the soft, cottoned border of Taichi's clearly strained boxers. _'Huh.'_ Yamato dug beneath this last, feeble obstruction, three knuckles deep already, to find creamy skin on the diagonal crease connecting Taichi's pelvis to the insides of his thighs. At reach also waited that piece of Taichi Yamato had never touched before. He was almost _there_.

"You like it, Taichi? Is this nice…?"

"Fuck…!"

In that shallow gasp, Yamato felt Taichi jolt and his belly quivering from the effort to stay in control, holding on to precious few breaths. But the best part was how instinctively Taichi spread his legs for Yamato. While he _still_ didn't say anything, the hands on Yamato's hip and tailbone were clutching him so hard, any more applied force would break him.

It was clear no one was actually watching the film by now. The touches they exchanged were no longer within the domain of caresses but much more into the steamy, sweaty world of hot and heavy petting.

' _Oh, god!'_ Yamato needed him. He needed him so much right now. It hurt. He didn't know it was possible to want Taichi more than he already did. He was sopping wet. His soggy briefs were rubbing his cream on his left thigh and he was making a real mess on himself.

A few of Taichi's fingers sailed lower and tickled the back of Yamato's thighs.

Yamato withdrew enough to rise back to Taichi's ear. "Let's stop playing 'pretend'."

Taichi coughed out a noncommittal sound and watched the Yamato on his shoulder.

"Taichi…" Yamato murmured down Taichi's throat, leaving dunk, broiling pools on his already heated skin which was far too sensitive. "I don't want this game. I have my hand inside your trousers and I'm making you dirty-talk me. Some would say this is how second base looks like."

How was Taichi supposed to react? He had no idea why Yamato was doing what he was doing. Even Yamato didn't know sometimes. Taichi didn't know why Yamato was coming on to him when he clearly wanted someone else. He also didn't know why he, Taichi, played along – or what the hell he was thinking. _If_ he was thinking. But Yamato was strange like that and Taichi was weird like that.

Taichi was aware of the truth Yamato had just told him. He was also only barely able to function. When he came over a few hours ago, he wanted to tell Yamato about everything and hoped Yamato could help him work out what 'everything' was. But he reckoned he could wait a little while longer.

 _This_ was the only thing that mattered now. Taichi wanted them to continue this thing, which was no longer a game, between them. For even just a little while longer. It was alien, yes, but also right and made so much sense. They needed to be this close now.

' _Funny'_ Taichi thought. Usually, _he_ was the one who got _Yamato_ to loosen up. Spending all these years together got them rubbing their complementing personality traits all over each other.

And further on the topic of rubbing –"It's you and me, Yamato. We go bonkers," Taichi said eventually. "But, _if_ we're flirting 'n' all, then let me tell you: if I were into guys, I'd fuck you _so_ good, Yama. I'll make you feel so good, Yamato, you'd see heaven with my cock. You tell me, and we'll do it any way you want to. I'll do you on the fucking wall. We'd write the second volume of the Kama Sutra. Any place, any time, I'd bloody worship your body."

"Really?"

"I will worship _you_."

Past intelligible responses, Yamato chuckled against the faint hairs constituting Taichi's sideburns. "You know, Taichi, I've been thinking..." The reverberations were translated to shudders which coursed down every disc along Taichi's spine. The way Yamato clung to his shirt suggested ideas Taichi only dared indulging sometime between 1 AM and 4 AM. But those were becoming very real very fast when white fingers slowly pushed another button out of its respective hole, unbuttoning Taichi's shirt all the way through.

"… I've been thinking about one of those things you read in self-help books and tell yourself is important. You tell yourself you'll follow through with it, but never do it 'cause you tell yourself it's not important _enough_ to be worth the risk. I'm thinking about the way we, humans, tend to regret the things we wanted to do but chose not to, more than actions we actually followed through with, even when they were mistakes. I think that happens because the 'what if' feeling hovering over a person's death bed is the worst feeling in existence." Yamato replenished his air supply. "And I decided I will regret nothing, Taichi. Leave nothing undone. That's what I want. Now, before it's too late. What do _you_ want, Taichi?" he repeated the question, waited for reply and decided he got tired of waiting and was done playing.

One more time, and this time without resistance, Yamato took Taichi's hand and slowly led it under his jumper. To his chest. Down his stomach. Up his thigh.

"You can't tell me you never wanted this…"

His mouth was so near Taichi's own they were swallowing each other's intermingled breaths.

Taichi tilted his chin towards him until the tips of their noses bumped. Within his purview was an elegant Cupid's bow and the extension of his gaze followed its curvatures to the pink lushness it outlined. When he remembered the essentiality of oxygen, Taichi reigned in his brain enough to express the only thing that still remained there. "Maybe I don't want to risk what we have…?"

Yamato's hand found Taichi's own and pressed them together, palm to palm. He stared at their wound fingers and he found Taichi, eye and eye, and demanding. The _"I won't let go of your hand even if we die', remember? Nothing will break this"_ part wasn't said. It was there, between them.

Small, Yamato kissed their hands together.

He didn't do it to be confrontational. He didn't even do it to comfort Taichi. It was the most obvious, simple fact there is: The skies were blue unless you were colour-blind, the sun is a hot place to live at, and nothing would break their friendship. That simple confidence, the way Yamato took such risks for things he honest-to-fuck believed in, was effortlessly the air in Taichi's lungs. Taichi admired Yamato for it. He matched the pressure in Yamato's hold, pushing his fingers as hard as he could into Yamato's.

"Nothing," he confirmed and really felt it. Their relationship had gone through plenty of evolutions over the years – to which they adapted every single time. It was always a defining element of their friendship; the courage to believe in each other and take a leap of faith. That was not likely to change anytime soon. Besides, since when was Taichi too afraid to bid farewell to the safe and sound?


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16: And Just Forget the World… Like Members of a Last of a Dying World

"I want to do something ridiculously stupid, Taichi…"

Yamato sat there, all fae-like, watching Taichi trying to think while eliminating a few more centimetres of the space between them. He cradled Taichi's nape and left his hand lodged there, as though Yamato wanted to share a secret with Taichi.

His thumb massaged vertical aisles into Taichi's tender neck, and Yamato followed the soft angles of Taichi's face with his tongue. Licking and running the pink tip in a direct line all the way from the pointy jaw and up the stubby chin. From there, he climbed to a rest at the dent below Taichi's bottom lip.

Yamato complemented the trail of saliva with soft, tiny kisses. His breath trembled with the motions, aggressive and barely restrained. He met Taichi's wide eyes again with his wickedly smiling ones. The stare he got from Taichi had that dash of brain-dead in it. He was Yamato's.

Taichi's head was somewhere in intergalactic space right now. Paralyzed. His hands were gushing sweat.

Rising to his knees and freeing his arm from Taichi's grasp, Yamato encircled Taichi's wrist and led him to the stretchy fabric of his boxers so Taichi could play with Yamato's soft butt.

When Taichi touched him the way Yamato wanted him to, Yamato pushed his own hand under Taichi's shirt; unto those rigid plains of his six packs, where Yamato's index finger prodded Taichi's contours with its pad.

The white cotton rode up to Taichi's waist, letting Yamato bask in the stunning view of his own hand on Taichi's flat stomach and ripped abs. It slowly moved to Taichi's inner thigh, where Yamato found a scandalously straining bulge.

He smirked. It was a damn huge one. Appetizing. Yamato let his fingers continue tracing small strokes along Taichi's denim. Then he cupped Taichi's boner.

"You are very hard, Taichi…" he whispered with thickness Taichi didn't recall ever hearing.

"What are you doing…?" Taichi's voice was hoarse and full, but he didn't stop Yamato. He was far too busy with those pliable mounds in his hand anyway. And ' _god'_ having _Yamato_ want him like this was unbelievable. Yamato was drunk with alcohol and with lust and it was all for Taichi. Taichi loved it! He loved how hot he was making him!

Yamato's face was all over the place, but his eyes, so dark they were almost violet, told Taichi all the things Yamato wanted and didn't say. All the more so when Yamato whispered, like silk, grazing their lips together with every syllable, "Are you daft? I'm sexing you up…"

"Fuck…"

Desire replaced mischief and Yamato flicked his tongue along the supple flesh of Taichi's full lips, once, tasting him for the first time. And he continued – continued to use the pink tip to lave so slowly and tenderly along the line between them that can so easily become an opening. It was almost excruciating.

"So, what do you want, Taichi…?"

Taichi knew what he wanted. The past didn't matter. Tomorrow didn't matter. Nothing else mattered. Nothing – except for both of them being here, now. His heart was attacking his chest in hysterics and he couldn't hear anything that wasn't the rapid pumps of blood in his ears.

"Please, Taichi. Let me kiss you."

Colours and sounds in a blur; when Taichi's fingers threaded through Yamato's hair. When the kiss, the initially soft brush of their lips, the unsure row of sweet pecks, evolved into the mutual, completely mad, attacks of pieces of flesh that were seeking one another. When their mouths furiously fused together and Taichi was kissing Yamato thoroughly. Kissing him wildly – because the world doesn't matter when they kiss – tilting Yamato's head one way or another, like Taichi wouldn't get to see tomorrow if he didn't. When, every time their lips clashed, the air from Yamato's nostrils came at out-of-breath, uneven pitches. Or when Taichi's tongue took Yamato's nasty one till they tangled over saliva and wine, and Taichi pressed hard into him, gathering his taste. When Yamato's hands gripped the back of his shirt and pulled Taichi to him like he wanted to swallow him. When Taichi's fingers were possessively woven behind Yamato's neck and smoothed the paths up and down its length. When Yamato gasped. When Taichi grabbed Yamato's wrist and pushed him on the bed. When he straddled his waist and cold hands found their way under Taichi's shirt again. When Taichi's own hand scaled the length of a supple thigh. When it was eagerly invited to touch the tender skin of inner thighs. When he pulled him closer. When Yamato's body heat was rising beneath him and Yamato's slender hands weren't that cold any longer. When small, sexy mewls responded to him so well. When they quivered, chocked and panted his name.

But it made so much sense when the sneaky devil smiled outrageously into Taichi's mouth. It was too good to be a part of the mortal realm. It was the mosh pit in a rock concert; it was exiting the gates on the last day of school; it was the first of August.

This game, which wasn't a game, didn't have any rules.

"Taichi…" Yamato moaned around Taichi's lips – a real moan. A man's moan. And he's gagging for hard sex. It was so mind-bogglingly good Taichi could die.

Yamato's asking for attention.

"Yeah, just like that…" he found himself groaning back and pulling away with a small 'mua' – lips barely brushing Yamato's mouth. Then he plunged into Yamato's oral duct again for more.

This was so enormously different from anything Taichi had experienced. He never touched someone like he did now. It was a kiss, but there was nothing in it that he recognized. The undercurrents were unfamiliar. It wasn't tender or subtle. Its content was harsh and biting and circled around his and Yamato's rivalry. Yamato was hungry and possessive, wanting everything out of Taichi because the world was his. Their tongues, sliding over each other, were weapons – loaded with their natural need to race and dominate. They were the tools they tried to invade each other with. To force open. They wanted to consume each other whole.

It was also so intimate, in that unimaginably intense way Taichi rarely felt. It told Taichi Yamato wanted him like nothing else and in ways no one else could think of. And it was honest – because Yamato won't give him anything less than that.

It wasn't like being with a girl at all; Yamato had corded legs, resilient muscles there, there and there, and sharp contours. Where Taichi used to expect round, compliant orbs were now defiant pecks. Nothing about Yamato was soft. It was like having sex with a steel crowbar. It was exactly what Taichi wanted. He wanted Yamato's broad bits. He wanted Yamato's solid bits. He wanted that area to be flat so they could be closer when Taichi'd be on top. Yamato's body fitted. Taichi could be as rough as he pleased or just be himself.

Taichi also wanted Yamato to kiss him, just like this, for as much as he wanted. This slow and this involved. With Yamato's taste and Yamato's smell and his adoring touch. It was right. Yamato was right. It was a contact Taichi felt at home with. Even in this new framework, they knew each other so well. They knew what to do to give each other what they needed and to pleasure how they both wanted to be pleasured. In most relationships, the people involved had to go a long way before they learnt each other's deepest secrets, but Taichi and Yamato were already there for aeons.

No, it was like nothing else, but had so much meaning and was crazy passionate and the challenge in that touch made Yamato's mouth feel good and sweet and irresistible.

So why wouldn't Taichi want to invade Yamato and crawl down his orifice? Especially when Yamato was like this – panting beneath him, so much more than merely obliging, and gently sucking on the tip of Taichi's tongue with those soft, _soft_ lips.

It was also very loud and accompanied the echo of Taichi's heart beats against the stillness of the acoustics in the house.

Instantly, Taichi's hands roamed all over Yamato's hot body, pulling him as close as possible to Taichi's heavy torso and getting ready to take him for all he got.

Taichi couldn't wait to taste the salt on Yamato's skin when he'd tremble beneath him. He wanted Yamato's sweat _bad_. "Fucking hell, Yama, can you _not_ be this fucking hot?!"

And Yamato wanted to give it to him. He wanted to be screwed. Up his arse. He liked having something in there. He loved that.

Yamato laughed and encouraged that strong, bronze arm to wrap around him as he raked sharp nails along the plains and valleys of Taichi's chest. They carved paths of budding red, sliding lower on those rock-hard pecs he fantasised about for way too long, and lower… lower… till Taichi almost chocked on his arousal.

"You want me, Taichi."

Between trying to hump Yamato's hand and splashing his iconic, goggle-headed grin, Taichi licked the tip of Yamato's nose, purring, "Who doesn't?"

"Say it."

"I refuse." Taichi licked Yamato's nose again. Once content with the amount of saliva stuck to Yamato's face, his tongue stayed hung loose and he grinned at Yamato like stupid.

Retribution was swift and Yamato grabbed Taichi's cheeks, squeezing the fats out of them.

"Shouldn't you apologize?"

And somehow Taichi still managed to stick his tongue out.

Talented fingers slipped under the waistline of Taichi's trousers and over the skin of his taut buttocks, massagingand plying the warm globes with the roughened aid of able palms. Wanting more and wanting him closer.

Taichi jerked to the touch, but everything was made clear when he finally said, under a very non-Taichi kind of bass-deep breath, "I want to fuck you through the floor."

"Yeah… I can feel that…"

Yamato smoothed the tip of his digit along Taichi's fat and itchy bollocks and crashed back into Taichi's mouth, taking him long and deep. Till they scraped each other's insides with angry teeth and the spit which rushed inside, stoked by unhinged and primitive god knows what. Yamato only took a break to fist Taichi's hair and bring his ear to Yamato's lips when he talked.

"And I want you, Taichi," he purred back, sending unthinkable signals into Taichi's aching hardness, "I really, _really_ want you."

' _I am going to fuck him senseless!'_ Taichi had _never_ seen Yamato like _this_ : so fucking horny and out of it. He wanted Taichi so bad. ' _Shit!'_ He looked so fucking sexy! It was the hottest thing ever.

' _Fuck'_ Taichi forced Yamato's knees apart with one of his own and dived between those long, pale legs, trapping Yamato in place underneath his weight. That blessed, first sensation of pressure on his boner ripped a savage growl from Taichi and he insistently bucked downwards, begging for more, pushing, pulling, and furiously rocking into those soft, bulging thighs. Everything, _everything_ to increase that desperately-needed friction and appease his raging hard-on.

Feeling Taichi's muscled shoulders rippling underneath his finger pads was terrific, and Yamato wanted – _no_! Demanded! - _demanded_ to touch Taichi in all places at once. He was as hungry for this as Taichi was. And Taichi was hungry. So hungry his pupils swelled up to black pools of unrestrained desire and he was devouring Yamato with wanton, fierce kisses.

Yamato spread his legs more and pushed up to meet the wild, harsh handling of his body, further chafing his naked thighs raw with Taichi's clothed ones. Something warm and sticky trickled onto his leg, where Taichi was grinding into him so hard it hurt. Yamato was spilling himself everywhere through the material of his boxers. His wetness rubbed into Taichi and when Taichi thrust into him, their juicy pre-cum began mixing on Yamato's inner thigh. Oh, _god!_ He wanted to wipe it with his finger and suck on it, tasting them together.

Then they rolled around on one another. Yamato arched over Taichi's torso, like a kitty, and kissed Taichi all over.

There were hands inside Yamato's hair, pulling and tugging at him aggressively. Yamato didn't want this to stop. Taichi was touching him just right in all the good places. Taichi's control was right. Normal. Yamato was allowed to let his own go. His courageous leader was taking him somewhere again and they could be a part of something.

"Let's do it…" he exhaled a broken pant into Taichi, "let's fuck."

Yamato threw his head back, giving Taichi a better access to his sensitive neck. Taichi _loved_ it and in seconds, his fluttering tongue rode down the exposed column to the base of Yamato's delectable flesh. Taichi blasted it with frenching kisses. First – hard, and then he left softer, sexier kisses on Yamato. Under him was the frantic thumping of Yamato's pulse. Taichi sucked the white skin into his lips, cajoling the blood to tear through the veins and leave swollen stain marks.

Yamato's hands left Taichi's arse and tangled in the brown mass of his hair again, telling him wordlessly how much he needed Taichi's mouth _right there_ , on _that_ spot, and forbade him from leaving. At the same time, he laughed and snorted and tried to hold it in every time Taichi's hair tickled his chin.

The strangled moans-mixed-laughs Taichi received when his teeth grazed the curve dropping into Yamato's shoulder, told him how much the absurdly sexy male below him loved this. That this was a little sweet spot. Taichi smiled into Yamato's skin before assaulting it with suckling and bites till Yamato was a gasping wreck.

It was so beautiful. Taichi wanted to find all those little secrets which made Yamato sing.

So Taichi clammed down his teeth where Yamato ordered him to through no words he could create, hearing that silken whimper again. When he tried to move though, Yamato fastened his iron-grip on Taichi's nape.

"Fuckin' harder!"

Yeah…Taichi knew what Yamato wanted. He knew his game. And he knew why. For Yamato, who always kept everything about himself behind a stone wall, letting go of that control was bloody fantastic and everything he needed. Liberation in sex form.

It was beautiful for Taichi. Watching Yamato letting go was really beautiful.

There, beneath the sex, at the centre, were the absolute, unconditional trust and friendship between them. Nine years culminated to Yamato surrendering _his_ control to _Taichi_. He gave himself to _Taichi._ Thoroughly. To be trusted so deeply was second to none. Taichi was overwhelmed by how deep he was inside him sometimes – and now was it.

Easily, Taichi's incisors dug tunnels through the white skin, exactly where Yamato needed them to be, till a liquid welled into the surface.

"Harder…"

' _Bite me. Harder. Bite me again. Let the wounds fester. Never heal. Leave a filthy colour.'_

Warm and metallic currents seeped past Taichi's tongue and into his throat, piercing him with the taste of sour copper. Some of the blood spilled past the fresh gashes and fell down Yamato's neck, soaking his hair and the white pillow.

Taichi gave a small peck to the incision, kissing it better.

The sanguine turned him on hard.

Yamato buried his hands in Taichi's hair again, and pulled him back to him for much more involved, sexy kisses. Their wet, wiggling muscles slid from one to the other, going over, going under, kissing teeth, biting chins, speaking only the language of desperate want, and trying to feed off each other.

Taichi captured the plush flesh of Yamato's lower lip between his canines and bit down hard enough to fracture the tender skin. He softly sucked on the bruise and lapped at the small wound, as if he was trying to ease the pain. Yes, he definitely knew Yamato. Those hurt whines Yamato made were terrific and so worth it.

Without saying anything, Yamato paused and pushed Taichi off of him. He propped himself on his elbows and leaned backwards, throwing his arms over his head, behind the rims of the bed. His lips were puffed and inflamed like petals while smirking in the most ungodly way possible. His legs fell open.

Yamato was offering himself.

"Fuck me, Taichi".

For some reason, Taichi snapped up. There was a moment in which he wanted to stop everything and study every single detail about Yamato. Taichi saw him fuming, he saw him happy, he saw him worried, but he hadn't seen him like this. So alive, it was unreal.

Yamato was like the best of Botticelli. A work of art Taichi was allowed to play with and shape, dirty and smear with his own colours, and make his own.

Lewd blue, under heavy, horny eyelids, looked at Taichi, confused and desperate and with a frantic need to know why he stopped.

"Touch me…" Yamato cooed softly and Taichi didn't dare miss a single place for his hands to meet Yamato's body and create a dialogue of touches and responses.

Taichi slipped his hand under the blonde head and lifted it for a much, much softer peck. "A real beau-"

"Don't!" Yamato barked at him and Taichi reacted like he got slapped in the face.

But Yamato was told the same bloody things a million times over like a broken radio. Nag nag nag. He was hot. He was beautiful. He was talented. It was boring. Yada yada.

There was something only Taichi could give him.

"Say something no one else can tell me, Taichi…"

Realisation sparked in his sex-glazed face when Taichi rubbed Yamato's flat tummy. "You fucking arsehole – you're worth everything you put me through, Knife of Ramen," and at that moment, it downed on Taichi they weren't just fooling around; it was more than sex. He would love Yamato on his bed. Nothing Taichi ever did with someone, or would do, could compare to this. Not even close. No one could do to Taichi what Yamato could. They were trying to connect so they could find each other. This time, he would stay the night.

With the backs of his fingers, Taichi caressed the smooth, white cheek – so slowly and gently, as if he'd break Yamato otherwise. He just wanted to look at Yamato. Just that.

"What?" Yamato snapped at him, flushed and confused. What was Taichi doing to him?!

But Taichi kept on going.

"What…?"

"How do you want to be kissed?"

Yamato looked at him with two huge eyes. "However you want, Taichi… Do it in your own way."

Very lightly, Taichi lips fell on Yamato's and they moulded them again with a languid pace. Taichi let his tongue slide in slow and careful circles along the tip of Yamato's. He wanted to give him a real kiss; not something which was meant to lead them someplace else or be an ending. A kiss which was an entity all on its own and that he would feel with his entire body.

He wanted this to last, before they'd have to face the hard questions: what type of existence were they to each other? Was he a substitute for what Yamato can't have? Could they _be_?

Tonight, he would take everything Yamato wanted to give him. And ' _god'_ how can someone even kiss like this? How can Yamato, faraway Yamato, kiss like _this_?

Yamato was a bit shaken at the gentle pace Taichi ordered and the sudden change. When Taichi touched him with such care, as if they were lovers – or anything else that accidently indicated this whole thing meant more to Taichi than a nice shag – Yamato wasn't sure if it hurt him or made something delusional inside him supremely happy.

Then, Yamato kissed Taichi like so many other men and women wished he'd kiss them. Like dozens begged. He let Taichi stroke through his hair, taste, try. Love. Go deep, go long, go slow; go as thorough as they could. Letting him really part his lips into an upper and a lower one for the first time.

Now, earlier, and any other time they connected somehow – this is the sensation of sharing intimacy with someone who can't be anyone else.

Taichi smoothed a thumb along Yamato's throat, lining a trail of pleasant tingling behind him. It was like seeing fire for the first time, or art. Like shedding tension. Nothing like this had ever made Yamato feel so aroused before. Or so shy. He feltlike he was losing his virginity – no matter how far gone it's been by now. Only that it couldn't compare. Nothing could compare.

His nerves were pared and raw, so much that he could get off on that kiss alone.

Fuck! No! No! No! He can't cum yet! Break! Break! He needed to breathe somehow without ruining the mood!

"You are so fucking sexy, Taichi…" Yamato muttered into Taichi's lips and it excited Taichi so much, he got mad red splashed all over him. Yamato said this as a fact, not a compliment. No one ever said something like this to Taichi, no matter how many girls he laid. And he did that thing where he used Taichi's name for dirty talk! "Taichi, you're so fucking hot… I don't even know what else to say."

In the absence of Taichi's mind, Yamato curled one of his endlessly long legs around Taichi's waist and wrestled him down to the bed. Until Taichi was under him and Yamato treated himself to a long, loving look. Another second – and Yamato was properly straddling Taichi's hips, happy and horny.

The moment he did, Taichi frantically snaked his hands under Yamato's briefs, splayed his fingers, and squeezed Yamato's lush buttocks. He began kneading it, unrestrained. His irises were now thinned by his augmented pupils to a barely visible ring, rimming the black circle of his carnal needs. For Taichi, this was perfect. Yamato's muscles were tight and wound, but oh so yielding.

Yamato yelped. He forgot how strong an incensed Taichi could be. In return, he buried his face deeper under the collar of Taichi's shirt. His lips were met with the warm, olive skin at the hollow of Taichi's throat. There, Yamato laid a faint kiss and drew winding curls along Taichi's body. His tongue rode the muscular path to Taichi's firm shoulders as they rose and fell beneath him.

Taichi's palms shifted their attention to Yamato's hipbones. He clasped them tightly, holding Yamato still as Taichi thrust hard upwards, yearning for more of the pressure Yamato provided.

Once he secured Yamato over his lap, Taichi shot his hand between Yamato's legs, stroking, teasing, and fooling around with Yamato's hard-on through the briefs. Happy, Taichi found out having a new dick in his hand was decent. Plus, it got Yamato to whine cutely… and to desperately search for more "Taichi" to rub him this way and that way and to spoil Yamato rotten.

For a brief second, the length of Taichi's cock was stuffing the space between Yamato's bum cheeks and prying them apart. While Taichi himself panted down Yamato's ear, excited and so _obviously_ turned on. ' _Fuck'_ Yamato could die.

"I will do anything for you to fuck me … Please… now! You have no idea how long I wanted this, love…wanted _you_ … Be in me… Please…" he whined around the muscles filling his lips, tightening his grip.

Was that meant to appeal to Taichi? Taichi felt so wanted and it was so sexy, but also too personal for comfort. Those words weren't really meant for him.

He pushed Yamato away from his neck to look him in the eye. "I'm not the one you're in love with."

Fuck, how Taichi wanted to wait until after the fun parts to ask.

He couldn't.

He won't enjoy what they were about to do before he knew what it meant for Yamato. At least tonight, he wanted to be the only one Yamato had those pretty blues for.

Shock didn't begin to cover what this mood whiplash did to Yamato. _'Shit! Fuck! Fuck! Motherfuc...!'_ why did he have to blurt this stupid shit?! Yamato's hands fell to Taichi's hips, as if he needed to hold on to Taichi or he'd fall. If Taichi didn't want to bring feelings into this, Yamato'd go with it. It's natural after all and Yamato prided himself on his ability to bring cold, detached relief. He can do this.

"You can be whatever you want to be…" Yamato was going for flirty and sensual, with a technique that never failed to get someone hard or wet for him before. "This doesn't make you gay, Taichi. I can just be your one-time thing."

But Taichi wrapped himself around Yamato's midsection, pulled him into a hug and stayed there. The tips of his brown hairs tickled Yamato's chin.

"I don't want you to be my 'one-time thing' and you don't need to fake it," he said into Yamato's chest. "You have _me_ now. Even if it's not what you want. Just…please…be with _me_ and don't pretend I'm someone else. I can't replace whoever you're in love with, but-"

An earthquake. Yamato's foundations collapsed like _this_. He got it all wrong – totally wrong! Even he and Taichi sometimes needed to say things clearly to each other. They needed to speak, to communicate ideas, to talk clearly to one another, and be honest. Something cracked open and nine years of Yamato's life poured out through the chinks.

"Will I lie to you?"

Yamato was shaking. His rough fingers explored Taichi's jawline.

' _What kind of expression is that?'_ Taichi wasn't used to being looked at like this; it was completely open and unnameable. Yamato's eyes were big and appeared to be melting at the edges. He was his eleven-years-old self again.

Yamato took Taichi's hand in his and set it over his chest, letting Taichi feel how fast his heart beat.

"So-"

"Shut your mush."

Yamato towered over him, his skin flaming with all sorts of feverish reds, and shut Taichi's mouth with his hand.

He smiled at Taichi and replaced the hand with a soft kiss – almost void of sexuality.

There were no words. No words at all. This alone had meaning. Simple, boundless trust. Affection. Loves in the interim. Summer. Augusts. Games. Concerts. Those long nights in the Digital World. Every argument they had. The punches, the anger, the dumb smiles that followed and which hid silent apologies. Every time they almost died. Every time they almost died saving each other. How much he hated feeling Taichi falling. How much he hated feeling Taichi falling apart. How much he hated feeling Taichi falling apart from him.

Omegamon.

Sex.

A kiss.

It was almost chaste at first. Yamato shivered like mad. Here, now – maybe he was never kissed before. It was slow, and tender and terrified, but at the same time, crazy.

Their breaths synced into a constant and their gentle heartbeats pulsed through the contact of their lips, harmonious. Taichi only pressed slightly further into Yamato. If he'd put more force behind the touch, something would break. In here, there was serenity he could enter and fill. It was so familiar. He started shaking. He wanted Yamato to kiss him like this forever. There was something so sensual about it.

Certain wetness fell between their lips and filled the infinitesimal gaps which still kept them apart – though Taichi wasn't sure whose tear it was.

Yamato cradled Taichi's face gently in his hands, but his hold was firm enough to make the message clear over his overwhelmed self.

"Only you. Nine years. Only you," he mouthed, too completely mesmerized for articulation, like it was everything he ever imagined and yet far beyond his wildest dreams. But, for Taichi, Yamato may as well have yelled it from the rooftops.

"There was never anyone else for me, Taichi. This is my naked truth. This is not some random impulse. You are my best friend and… Fuck! I don't even know what this is! I don't think what I feel for you even exists, but it's real." Yamato felt very naked and self-conscious. "And I don't need the same. I don't care if you take your fuck and then take your leave tomorrow like you do with everyone else. This much is good for me."

A small silence followed and, for Yamato, nothing existed. The more it was prolonged, the more his heart threatened to fold in on itself and break. Was Taichi angry at him for not telling him sooner? Would he want to stop this? Would he leave? God, Yamato was about throw up.

"Please say something…" he said, barely more audible than a hush in a graveyard.

Taichi wasn't good with words. It wasn't as much as his forte as it was Yamato's. Still, no matter what he said, or what he did, or when he didn't say or do a thing and just let the quiet speak for itself – he let it all come from his heart. Always.

This moment. Right now. He had to tell Yamato that _this_ was more startlingly real to him than anything else. _This_ was not about bodies. It was about fusing them. He wanted to touch Yamato from the inside and he wanted that inside to contain him. They could touch each other like no one else could touch a body, from the inside and out and back inside and out again, and be a piece inside the other.

"Just how starved for sex do you think I am…?" Same way as Yamato did, Taichi encircled Yamato's thin wrist and laid his hand against Taichi's own, maniacal heart. "You are the stupid one."

There was another intermission in which they stayed sitting, like this, forming symmetry.

"Taichi…"

For a moment, there was nothing else in the room except for the name, the question, the promise, ringing with Yamato's voice. But he didn't say anything more. Taichi didn't say anything either.

They kissed beautifully.

Yamato watched himself die in a wonderful way, and thought he may have felt the edge of it.

The wild pulse beneath their lips rushed to meet each place they made contact with. Taichi pushed deep into Yamato and searched for the undiscovered pieces inside his mouth. He would excavate Yamato's interior; would try for new angels, the small bloodlines, Yamato's spit glands, his tonsils, the backs of his teeth, along his palate. Taichi Would know him better than anyone else ever did or ever will.

By the time they parted, Taichi's lips were skived, his nerves were raw and it burnt, but this was meant for him. Here he found eternity.

Taichi collapsed into Yamato, resting his head over Yamato's belly as he hugged him, listening to Yamato's heart thundering over his head.

"Your heart is beating really fast… " Taichi mumbled into Yamato's torso, whose bones protruded through the thin material of his jumper.

"Yeah…"

Tan hands slipped under the offending yarn and travelled the length of Yamato's spine, guiding the fabric to Yamato's armpits and revealing a figure speckled with irregularities of the skin. Taichi ran his fingers along the risen cut lines, and landed little butterfly kisses down the thick gossamer of Yamato's scars. He wanted to know more. So much more. How come he never asked?

"Which one was your first?"

Yamato leaned down to kiss him again and moved Taichi's finger to the crooked 'G' under his left nipple.

"Which one is your favourite?"

Another kiss as Yamato repeated the motion along the same jagged incision, and then continued it further onto the bold 'T'.

"Which one hurt the most?"

Another kiss and he moved Taichi's hand to that section on Yamato's peck where Taichi would feel his heart beat the hardest.

"How many more do you want?"

"As many as you're willing to give me…" he breathed into Taichi's hanging jaw.

Both smiled. Both cracked up 'cause this was so fucking surreal and mushy.

"Oh, fuck. It's like Koushiro's birthday again," Taichi said between random bouts of laughter and a hiccup.

"When you got drunk and shaved half your eyebrow?"

"Stop laughing! The hairs there still grow funny!"

"I'll stop laughing at you when you'll stop doing stupid shit."

Taichi held him a bit tighter. "But I love it when you laugh – even when you sound like a donkey in heat."

"Shut up, Taichi!"

"Make me."

Things started heating up again and _fuck_ did Yamato have an excellent use of his hands. He was also letting out weird, little voices, as though, on the one hand, he was enjoying himself immensely but then seriously needed his fix on the other. A fix of some proper body-mashing and hard sex.

Not that Taichi was doing any better. Not with how Yamato was lapping his sweat and telling him, "Taichi, mess me up."

Clearly, they were wearing far too much clothing. The hardness straining Taichi's denim was gagging for a breather.

"Taichi…We should take off our clothes…"

Yamato's mouth travelled to Taichi's warm throat again, sucking and exploiting it while eliciting very satisfying shudders out of him. All the while, his hands darted between their bodies, going straight for Taichi's jeans – where they frantically fumbled with the belt-buckle and zip. Of course, Taichi lurched forward with his hips, trying to press his painful boner into Yamato's palms.

When Yamato had that annoying, last button undone, he slipped his hand past the bushy curls cushioning Taichi's massive erection, and wrapped it around that smooth, pulsing warmth for the very first time. His thumb dropped under the base, gathering the sleek dampness from the stains on Taichi's briefs. It brushed tiny circles into the sensitive thing, learning the route of the thick dorsal veins along the organ as they gave it life. In a second, Yamato was rolling the head of Taichi's _gorgeous_ dick in his fingers. Gorgeous and hard and so perfectly suck-able.

' _Beautiful.'_

It was like putting his hand in a little oven.

The sound this little thouch pulled out of Taichi was inhuman. Taichi clutched to Yamato's jumper, almost tearing the offensive fabric apart with his need to force them closer and to cut the barriers between them. Instantly, Yamato felt a hot, hard leap in his hand.

"Good?"

"Way better than playing solo," Taichi heaved a strained breath.

"And the girls?" Yamato levelled him his eyes.

Taichi smirked, but the effect was ruined when he hissed; Yamato gave a very gentle and naughty pull & squeeze to Taichi's ball-sack and sent Taichi to heaven while he was at it. "You are second to none, Knife of Ramen."

"Screw you!"

"Ow! In a second, Yama." Also, Yamato was right, Taichi figured – he did know how to work his mouth: after Yamato looped his arm over Taichi's neck for better access, he ravished him. Dipping his velvety tongue, tasting, swirling, exploring, and driving Taichi insane with those small, needy sounds Yamato produced in the back of his throat or the way he corrected, "Yama _to_ …"

"You _do_ know how to use your mouth…" Taichi grinned.

"I can suck the chrome right out of a pipe, Taichi."

"Show me!" Having that _bastard's_ hand just comfortably sit at the base of Taichi's shaft was cute, but not satisfying at all. He couldn't wait to part those lush lips with his cock.

If Yamato's smirk could widen any further, his brain would drop through his nasal tunnels. He was the effigy of a demon, licking his overripe lips; coating them in a glossy sheen in a way which purposefully presented the small, silver ball on his tongue. It was _obscene_.

"I will do. Whatever. You. Want." Yamato shoved his tongue into Taichi's ear and moved the tip in long, maddening flicks with every syllable.

"Everything?"

"Everything," Yamato whispered, body heaving, falling and rising with low air pressure. He meant it. Everything Taichi wanted – as long as he continued touching him.

Yamato slowly peeled off Taichi's shirt – too slowly. Until its only grip on the caramel-shaded arms were the arm-holes bunching into folds over his elbows. Finally his, that implacable body was on display, and Yamato dragged his teeth across Taichi's chest till he could taste Taichi's beating heart between his lips.

Lingering on the dusky areola, Yamato traced it with broad licks before swallowing the hardening peak. Lick, lick, lick, suck, bite, lick, suck, bite, pull, indulge himself in Taichi's soft mewl of a reaction when he panted "you're fucking amazing…", lick. Bite – definitely bite. Yamato loved everything about that nub and he kept on tugging it with his teeth till it grew taut in his mouth.

"You were the most annoying, frustrating, childish person I've ever met." Yamato lowered himself along Taichi's body. Starting at Taichi's shoulders, Yamato's used his tongue to draw a path past the defined muscles of Taichi's abdominals and the firm bumps of his deltas. Hot lips peppered them with scorching hot kisses, marvelling again at Taichi's impeccable, athletic physique. Yamato's hands slid down Taichi's firm pecks, fingers running unrestrained, while Yamato made love to Taichi's belly button with all of his mouth. Taichi's rising… falling… sporting delicious streaks of sweaty, pink patches… pecks... Yamato fanaticised plenty about touching Taichi's chest like this.

"Same-" Taichi hissed and kissed the top of Yamato's head over and over – as if that could salvage his sanity.

"I wanted you so badly."

Yamato's unbelievably lustful eyes shot to Taichi's. The sharpness there was frightening. Than he continued along the glory trail, his fingers tugging at the flimsy, dark hairs.

"I've been dying to get you in bed," Taichi answered and continued kissing, getting high on Yamato's hair.

"I've been dying for more. I was obsessed with you – even back then. The things you did to me were terrifying." Yamato smirked again, "the only thing I want more than seeing you cum is making you cum."

That was about Taichi's last string of self-control and he pushed Yamato's head down. For the record, Taichi wasn't normally someone who'd do something like that to someone else – but this was Yamato's game and that nutter _loved_ this sort of pornographic shit. The fact Taichi needed Yamato to hurry up already and go down on him – _now_ – made cooperation easier, though.

"There are better things you can do with that mouth of yours, angel."

Yamato obediently sank the last few centimetres to his knees, but his _evil_ snigger told Taichi he's gonna be brutal before Taichi got what he wanted.

Yamato rubbed his cheek against the steamy arousal trapped behind the fabric, and inhaled the dank smell of pre-cum like a kitten who wanted his milk.

Taichi almost choked – that was so fucking hot! He needed to know where Yamato learnt how to do that and decapitate whoever taught him. He'd have a new nickname for Yamato now, though. One that'd really set him off. Then two dexterous thumbs hooked into Taichi's jeans and his brain stopped talking.

Those shredded abs bowed beautifully over the bed as Taichi let Yamato strip him with a torturously glacial pace. Right until his greedy hard-on _finally_ popped into the open with a firm, twenty-something centimetre display of Taichi's heat. It was super-thick and long and rigid and hard and even more perfect than what Yamato fantasised about.

Taichi had a lovely tan all around and the whiter patch of skin over his arse promised Yamato his bruv didn't do tanning in his nudes. It accentuated that area in a very erotic way and Yamato couldn't wait to have Taichi all the way inside of him.

Taichi exercised some angles, eagerly trying to have a better view of what was going to happen next. He brushed his hand on Yamato's soft cheek and watched Yamato rub against it – a cat welcoming its human – before cupping his chin and turning Yamato to look at him. Yamato responded beautifully, following the motion and looking at Taichi with inhuman, seducing eyes, moving like this or like that, leaning into his palm, letting Taichi do whatever he wanted to him.

Mouth opened wide, Yamato buried his face between Taichi's legs and exhaled hotly all over Taichi's mucoid, ultrasensitive tip. He pulled back and grinned with that fiery quality which made Taichi want to die from frustration and kill Yamato at the process.

Yamato's hands trailed slowly and very accurately from the back of Taichi's knees and along the uppermost, inner thighs – with the motions his callus fingers excelled at, edging but not touching. Yamato could tell Taichi loved it.

Taichi tried to move into his touch with all sorts of tormented motions, but Yamato held him down.

Spilled cream already moistened the small spaces between Taichi's member and thighs. Yamato laughed at him and the taunting heat of his air made Taichi's sensitive sacks tighten and spasm.

"Wow, you're really wet, 'Chi."

A small, pink tongue peeked out of Yamato's mouth to lap at the smudge left by the glassy driblet. He followed it with the full ring of his lips which gently sucked the tender, unspoilt skin of inner thighs. It was such a sensitive spot for Taichi – his inner thighs. Yamato gave a hard suckle and kissed the spot when he was done. Taichi jolted. After he jolted, he mewled quietly.

Yamato felt very good with himself for making his own possessive mark on Taichi. In such a private part, too.

"You sound like a Viagra commercial," Taichi rasped when Yamato was done with him. But he had a wicked grin on when he motioned with a crooked finger, beckoning Yamato closer to his aching boner. Just a bit closer.

Eyes locked with Taichi's, Yamato took the wiggling digit into his mouth and wrapped his tongue around it, eager for any form of intrusion by any of Taichi's parts. Taichi's mind was blown when he watched Yamato lick it up and down before sucking it in all the way like a baby bottle – till his lips brushed the knuckles. He was giving Taichi a perfect simulation of what he planned for his pleasure. Then he took another one in and then another.

Torturously slow, Yamato pulled his head away, letting the digits slide out of his mouth with a soft pop.

"God…" Taichi moaned. Saliva dripped from his fingers with fading warmth, cooling as it dried.

"Let's not bring god into this."

Yamato trapped the engorged head of Taichi's huge foreskin tool between his finger and thumb, only barely touching. His index playfully rolled across the dripping slit and down around the crown, spreading the collecting, thick dampness.

It was not in any way enough to please but definitely enough to make Taichi whine, especially when Yamato took a long, drawled sniff of his member right in front of his eyes.

Taichi had a dusky and deep smell. The smell of male. Just dirty enough. It hadn't felt this good before, though; it's like Taichi's cock was meant for Yamato. Taichi had a lovely dark-brown colour there and the tip was red, swollen, and leaking long trails of sheer droplets unto Yamato's nose, trembling and waiting for Yamato.

"Yamato-" Taichi breathed out with unbridled lust, wriggling. 

"Were your ancestors originally from Chernobyl or something?"

When Yamato was talking so close to Taichi's dick, the vibrations from his hot breath rolled on it like waves. Sweat formed along Taichi's body as if it was ordered to.

"No… Why?"

Yamato showed Taichi a big, wide Bambi look before giving Taichi's cock one long, broad lick, from the balls and _all_ along the length of the prominent vein. Till Yamato climbed up to the tip and flicked his tongue against it.

"Fuck...!" Taichi gasped. The small, cold metal on Yamato's tongue was mingling with his steamy mouth and the contradiction between the two was a sweet torture. Taichi was ridiculously sensitive.

"That's not a cock, Taichi. That's a monster. It fills my whole mouth." It was true as far as Yamato was concerned; he needed two hands to work this man properly.

"Feels good?" Yamato took his time, being infuriatingly slow and testing Taichi's patience. He wrapped his fist around the foreskin and moved it up and down the bell, like it was a game of penis peek-a-boo.

Taichi wasn't known for having patience as his forte. The foreplay was fun and all, but he needed to get down and dirty already. So he twisted his fingers around the back of Yamato's neck and pushed him into his crotch.

"Come on, beautiful. Open up and put it in your mouth."

Fluttering his long eyelashes, as if anyone would believe he could possibly be so innocent, Yamato sealed his pretty, pouty lips around the creamy head of Taichi's fat length.

A wild moan was ripped from Taichi's lips at the scorching, wet sensation of Yamato's pliant mouth. At the way it encased more and more of him as Yamato went down and _especially_ the way he sucked tightly every time he came back up.

For a while after, the room was quiet, so the perfect sounds of slobbering and sucking cock were the only thing Taichi could hear. The only thing he could think about was how it was his cock being sucked. His hot cock by his hot best friend.

Out of nowhere, Yamato pulled out – that _sick_ sociopath – and gave the pulsing tool a series of small licks, lapping the trails of the warm drivel spilling out of Taichi, and continuing his kitty show.

"Yama…!"

Yamato grinned – evil! – and blew Taichi an aerial kiss. "Yama _to_ …" And he went down on Taichi, taking in the heavy cock till it filled his mouth completely and the piece of meat was throbbing between his cheeks. Yamato's taste-buds rejoiced at having Taichi tickle them and his right hand curled around the base of the shaft , pumping it with every suck.

Taichi could feel his member hitting the roof of Yamato's palate every time it slid up and down his tongue.

He pushed up into Yamato's mouth. He didn't mean to – it was an accident! It's kinda a rude thing to do. Then he kinda did it again. Then he did it a lot. Accidently!

The peachy circle of Yamato's lips gradually slackened around the pressure of his girth as they were forced to take Taichi faster and faster. Taichi brushed yellow hairs out of the way – not to have a good look at Yamato's working cheeks! Of course not! He just didn't want hairs to get into Yamato's uvula. Taichi also smoothed his hands down Yamato's back possessively. Nothing could possibly be hotter than watching Yamato struggle to fit him into his mouth.

"Fuck me…" Taichi groaned under a hitched breath.

Yamato, still eyeing him, drew spirals of saliva around the shaft before placing a small peck right at the swollen top. A pearly string still connected his glossy and sleek lips to Taichi's cock.

"I thought you'd be fucking me."

The string severed and fell in slippery droplets down Yamato's chin and chest.

This amazing image right now, of Yamato all wet and dirty with Taichi's juices, was the end of him. Taichi fisted a handfulofYamato's hairs and dragged his pretty face back into Taichi's groin, holding the blonde head in place.

Using his free hand, Taichi grabbed his pulsating dick and shoved it violently to Yamato's lips, trying to force it back into the humid hole.

"Suck," he commanded.

The aggression in his tone, like he was completely out of it, was almost scary. And almost making Yamato skeet all over himself.

Taichi was so stunning like this – savage with blind lust. The sweat between his solid thighs made the brown skin there glisten and his swollen balls were red and hot and eager for release.

"Please…don't stop…" Taichi screwed his eyes shut and took a steadying breath. This was crazy. "… Don't ever stop…"

 _God!_ Yamato could get used to Taichi begging for him like this.

He started working again, using the tip of his tongue to gently sweep along the length and skim below the sensitive folds of skin near the corona. He blew little butterfly kisses, moved to the slit at the very tip, descended back down, went back up, and gave it the tiniest bit of love.

"Yeah… just like this, Kitten." There was no doubt in Taichi's mind Yamato had a talented little tongue.

Then Yamato was sucking hard, letting Taichi probe deeper in the back of his mouth, trying to swallow Taichi as deep as he could, and taking it in like he was starving. For fuck's sake, he was developing a fixation for Taichi's member. He loved this shit, tough. Loved the hard flesh on and around his tongue. Loved taking sips of Taichi's pre-cum as it trickled down his throat.

On his part, Taichi was pushing Yamato's head harder and Yamato loved every bit of it as well. Taichi's scent, Taichi's taste, Taichi's dark blush, Taichi's voice, Taichi's breathing. The way his face was on a spectrum stretching between despair and blissful serenity.

Taichi's seething brown gaze was transfixed on the bobbing head between his legs – the way it licked and sucked and waltzed around his cock. Taichi moved Yamato's fringe out of his face again – yeah, all right, to get a better view of the terrific lollipop-lovin' he was receiving.

The visuals were outstanding. Taichi could stare at those depraved, red lips forever as long as Yamato was straining his pretty mouth.

As a matter of fact, Taichi almost hoped he'd die today. This is pretty much as good as life's gonna get. He was also running out of adjectives for Yamato's oral area – which was a positive thing because tomorrow he'd be embarrassed even by his own, admittedly not-very-high, standards. It's just that at the moment, he was super horny and Yamato was stupid sexy.

Suddenly, the lovely work performed along his cock slowed down to a painful halt, but before Taichi had the chance to go mad, he felt a small defiance around the tip of his crown. The tight, supple entrance to Yamato's air passage contracted feverishly around Taichi, like it was panicking and trying to escape.

"You're trying to deep-throat me, you crazy fucker?"

Taichi thrust the bulk of his massive girth upwards to greet the tender throat – while pushing the sucking beauty down on him with both hands. He smirked when he saw Yamato tense in shock. A little, renegade tear ran down Yamato's flushed, filled-up cheek. The same full cheek which was the reason Taichi's entire dick was now out of sight and all the way inside Yamato's throat.

"Fuck…that's hot, Yama... You give Sasha Grey a run for her money."

Taichi thrust in again.

Beneath him, Yamato's hand groped for a semblance of support. It landed on Taichi's trilling stomach and held on to it with something between a push and an angry clawing, struggling against the ruthless invasion into his body.

When Taichi looked at it placed there, vicious but submissive, covered with a lacteal liquid which was all his while slathering his lower belly, he really melted.

"You gorgeous cock-sucker…"

Yamato didn't move his eyes from Taichi's for a second. Defiant till the end just like Taichi loved him and holy crap! Did he suck it _just_ now?!

It wasn't long until the power game was reversed again and Yamato used his whole throat to suck determinately, wheezing the air of Taichi's balls through his nose.

His suction got furious, almost sending Taichi over the top with the sight of the hallow appearing on Yamato's cheeks and the sensation of his cock sloshing around in hot drool. With every blow and with the harsh clasp of his inner walls, Yamato's muscles constricted around the head of Taichi's dick as it went in and out, in and out, slick inside of him.

 _Shit_ , even when Taichi finally managed to make him shut his mouth, Yamato still drove him insane.

No one ever managed to do that for Taichi. This was easily the best head he ever got – which was quite an accomplishment. He didn't want to think where Yamato picked it up from. His hands danced all over Yamato's scalp unevenly, tossing the blonde strands one way and then another. He was begging Yamato and, at the same time, fucking his little mouth. "I want to see you gag on it."

Ragged breaths of pleasure escaped him as Yamato pushed further down and took even _more_ of Taichi into his delicate throat, slurping him one slice of flesh after the other.

Taichi couldn't help but reach out and place two fingers against the pale neck. He palpated it and ran the digits across its smooth extent only to pause at the stiff bulge which was _all_ him prodding Yamato's oesophagus.

Out of nowhere, Taichi pulled out. He fisted Yamato's hair and yanked his head away from his cock – so suddenly Yamato gagged, drippings spilling from his open mouth onto himself and on the floor.

With one easy motion, Taichi lifted him up to the bed, pushed him on his back, and lay over him.

"You bastard…" Yamato spat at him, voice rough, broken, and sieving through heavy coughing. His head was light with the lack of proper oxygen from deep-throating Taichi and his eyes were glazed but, at the same time, he looked like the horniest human in existence.

"You love it."

"True. Love fucking my mouth?"

Taichi smiled warmly and flicked his tongue at Yamato's earlobe, biting the studded shell gently between soft licks. Something clammy and gluey rubbed on his cheek and the smell of fresh sperm overwhelmed his nostrils. It was weird. Not enough to make him sick – it was just new.

He followed the sharp lines of Yamato's jaw into a bruising kiss, appreciating the newly added saltiness to Yamato's mouth and the added cushioning of his swollen lips.

His fingers ran, light as feathers, along Yamato's chest and paused to appreciate the piercing in his nipple. Yamato snorted. "You trying to milk it, or somethin'?"

"Ha-uh." More than anything, said wicked digits went down and lingered at the navel ring which, if at all possible, made Yamato's toned stomach look even more erotic. The muscles he had there contracted with anticipation… _'mmmm… delicious.'_

It wasn't long till Taichi lips followed that trail in winding paths. Biting hard, nibbling, and relishing in the flat, perfect tummy. Until his mouth locked on the silver metal and tugged it with rough teeth.

He rolled his tongue all over it and kissed it like he worshipped the damn thing, eliciting low wails from the sexy blonde to whom it belonged. There was clear delight painted on Yamato as he writhed at the caress of warm breath above his belly-button. Taichi proudly marked that as yet another sensitive spot to use against him.

"I finally got this little bugger. You have no idea how sexy this thing is." Taichi was also aware of what Yamato expected him to do and was glad his blud showered. Somewhere, he reckoned he should be disgusted by it, but Taichi was so far beyond reason that sucking some cock sounded damn near amazing.

Abandoning the jewellery, Taichi dipped his tongue underneath the elastic band of Yamato's boxers and continued into the blonde triangle between his legs _._ It's official – Yamato is a true, complete blonde. Already, the throbbing pink head greeted Taichi with small leaps of slick joy, hot and aching for his attention.

At first, Taichi stared at it a bit, trying to work out what to do with this new situation and with the potent smell of carobs. "How do you like it?"

"I like starting with slow and deep sucking. Maybe a bit Frenching. Make me feel like you really want it. Lick my cock like it's the tastiest thing you ever put in your mouth," Yamato purred.

Obviously, Taichi was inexperienced in the field and he wasn't at all pleased with how fast Yamato came up with that answer. Oh, he was going to make Yamato scream his orgasm out till that damn singer cracked his vocal cords.

Taichi's dark pink tongue left his lips, dashing over the blushing head and wiping the little, lacteal tears off Yamato's weeping slit.

It was a bit odd and very new. Tasted kinda funny. If Yamato liked doing this, he was a weirdo _._

The _sound_ that little lick got out of Yamato, however, was bloody beautiful. Taichi was willing to do just about everything to hear it again. So he got brave and let the flushed mushroom part his orifice.

With the instructions in mind, Taichi bobbed his head once, testing the experience. He wasn't sure about the feeling, but he absolutely loved the result. Yamato closed his eyes and balled his fists into the sheet, head tilting back in pleasure. "Damn, Taichi…"

So he probably did something right… right? Taichi went down again and tried tightening his cheeks, sucking on the way up just like Yamato did to him, and it was _exquisite_. Yamato let out the loveliest strangled noise and shifted around on the blanket. Without looking, Taichi knew a pair of glassy blues inspected his every move.

Alright, Taichi was ready to give a show and suck Yamato dry.

Frankly, Taichi wasn't so surprised to learn he wasn't all too bad with this cock-sucking business. If nothing else, he was very used to putting things in this mouth.

From Yamato's side, watching Taichi around his dick, bobbing up and down like a merry-go-round, had to be the most gorgeous sight on the face of the galaxy. When Taichi lifted Yamato's pelvis up to push a hand under his balls so Taichi could cup and play around with them, Yamato had the top of his head blown off.

Taichi pushed the fabric of Yamato's underwear out of the way and dropped his face to the base of the shaft. The strong musk of sweaty pubes hit Taichi's nose immediately, but it wasn't too bad. Yamato smelt good even there.

Never mind the details now – Yamato said something about "Frenching", so Taichi followed the main vein on the underside, from top to bottom, with large, open mouthed kisses, swapping his tongue in wide licks all over Yamato's flesh.

Beneath him, Yamato was a writhing mess of nerves. When Taichi made a particularly slow motion, Yamato raised his narrow hips, trying to get further into Taichi's wet warmth. Taichi slapped his thin stomach, forcing Yamato back down, before he removed himself from the aching cock entirely and buried himself between the pale thighs – a "punishment".

Yamato whined in protest, but Taichi had none of it. He pushed Yamato's legs up to his ears, forcing them to bend at the knee near Yamato's head. Then Taichi butterflied many kisses along the prolonged, whiter than white grooves engraved to the flesh under Yamato's buttocks with razors.

"Taichi… don't tease…" Yamato groaned, and used all his massive frustration to push Taichi's head, hard, back to where he _needed_ him to be.

Taichi grabbed Yamato's offending wrist with iron force and held it down while he revelled in Yamato's desperate pleas. He freed more of Yamato's member out of the cotton constraints of the boxers and wrapped it inside his fist. When Taichi massaged it in long, pumping motions, Yamato's testes bounced up and down to the motions and Taichi caught a glimpse of a small, silver barbell tucked behind them. It waspiercing the sensitive fold of skin leading up to Yamato's bitch-hole and glistening teasingly at Taichi.

To the sounds of complaining whines emanating from Yamato, Taichi again neglected his cock. Bronzed fingers sailed downwards, dwelling on the naughty silver ring – just so Taichi could hear Yamato's voices replaced by a sharp jolt. In turn, it evolved into a ragged sob when Taichi nudged his new toy.

"Cute Yama… very, very cute… suits you."

Taichi kissed Yamato's inner thigh in appreciation. Then he licked around the metal bar and slowly, momentarily, dipped the tip of his tongue into the thin cleft marking the beginning of Yamato's perineum _._ Just so he could really get the feel, before he scaled all the way back to the tormented dick and took the whole thing back in.

Yamato's cock was heavy inside Taichi's mouth, its roughened texture fully lodged against his tongue. Taichi wrapped his palm around the root of the shaft and synchronized each stroke with another bob of his head.

Yamato drove his pelvis up into Taichi's face. He couldn't help it, and the more Taichi tried to accommodate him, the more relentless Yamato became.

" _Faster._ "

Yamato's flimsy control over his breath wasn't worth a fuck. His fingers twined into the knots in Taichi's hairs, grabbing his head to push it further down while he thrust up. Each motion forced Taichi to take it deeper, prying his throat open with Yamato's impatient hardness while Yamato watched the soft ring of Taichi's lips sliding almost to his base.

Another bucking and Taichi chocked around him, making Yamato smirk. "Hurts, doesn't it?"

He was pushing himself into Taichi's throat. Taichi had to relax his muscles and try getting air in through his nostrils. But _'god'_ was it worth it! Yamato was panting heavily, mewling, and purring like a cat from the pleasure Taichi was giving him. So fucking stunning.

Yamato's legs trembled on either side of Taichi's head. Giving him a blowjob on the bed was a good idea. If he were standing up and letting Taichi do it on his knees, Yamato's legs would have caved in and he would have fallen on his face. Before his mind fell into utter blankness, Yamato tried talking under the suction of his breath. "I'm just gonna take the liberty and cum in your mouth, shall I…?"

Taich's hand couldn't stay still any longer. It travelled all the way up along Yamato's convulsing body, grabbing more of his flesh till Taichi's fingers reached Yamato's throat. He pushed Yamato's head back and listened to his pleasure. Taichi loved how tenderized Yamato's neck had become because of him and couldn't help but mould it more. Squeeze Yamato's windpipes a bit.

It wasn't enough. Taichi wanted more of him – to feel Yamato's face, Yamato's jaw, Yamato's lips around him again. So he inserted his slick digits back into Yamato's sweetly whining mouth, letting him suck on them some more.

Then Taichi did some epic manipulation with his tongue and everything went white for Yamato.

"Taic–fuck!"

Between heavy gasps, Yamato made a strangled sound around Taichi's fingers. The raw dick inside Taichi's mouth jerked violently, and something hot flooded his mouth in bitter jets, making him cough and spill small bits over himself. He still laughed, though, when he removed Yamato's hands from his head and said, "you're gutsy, ey Yama? 'S all about dirty words with you."

With a tired hum, Yamato pulled himself into a sitting position and held Taichi's face in place, licking along the small, leftover trail of cream dripping from Taichi's lips. Those were slow, sensual motions working his mouth as it explored this new flavour on Taichi. The taste of his cum inside Taichi's mouth forced one last, sweet sigh out of his throat before he fell unto his back again. Loose-limbed and happy, Yamato gauged Taichi's expression for the lovely combination of cute blush and mad arousal.

Taichi yanked one of the pillows and placed it under Yamato's hips to get him more comfy. One look at Yamato's delighted face, the soft red glow on his cheeks – just about one of the most gorgeous things on the planet – and Taichi slammed his hands on either side of his head, pinning Yamato down under him. Closing in on him and allowing him nowhere to escape. After all, Taichi was given permission to blow Yamato's mind and he intended to blow it into outer space.

Taichi had to make sure, though. Fingertips gently caressing Yamato's pale tummy, Taichi gave Yamato that look which urged him to show any sign of doubt, of regret – of anything that should make Taichi stop really. Taichi needed the _clear_ consent.

Smiling happily, understanding Taichi like only he could, Yamato brushed their legs together before he wrapped them around Taichi's waist and pulled their bodies close.

"I love your dick, Taichi. I think it's perfect." He rubbed his firm arse in small, taunting motions up and down Taichi's straining member to emphasise his point – propositioning. Yamato knew he looked desperate and that he was begging Taichi to hurry up and fuck him already, but he was so beyond caring at this point. He'd beg like a puppy till he'd get his big, juicy bone and hate himself _tomorrow_. So what if he just now came? Even if it was still through the boxers, Taichi's dick so close to his pooper, pushing his buns apart and threatening to fuck him open, was the most erotic sensation in the bloody fucking world.

"So can we do anal?"

Yamato slammed his hands on his face. "Fucking Moses Christ! Yes! We can do anal! We can do anal, Taichi! You can shove your dick all the way up my arsehole till it comes outta the other side, but just do it already!"

After a frenzied barking – "shirt! Off!" – Yamato hauled Taichi's frustrating button-down past his elbows. Now, Yamato had an unobstructed access to the swell on the biceps he loved so much and he gave the muscle a playful squeeze. Better, he had all this gorgeous, naked Taichi to properly inspect and toy around with. So much hard muscle, so much stunningly tanned skin – _'woot!'_

Taichi groaned and ripped the white fabric off and over his head. It got stuck around his wrist for two and half maddening seconds before Yamato jumped it and nothing short of tore the cuff button off.

They laughed at the ' _ping'_ on the floor _._

Taichi brushed Yamato's satin fringe to the side and muttered against the fine, blonde hairs tucked behind his studded ear-shell, "You're a disease in my head. You're everywhere; it's like I'm obsessed or something. You wiggle your little bum and I get hard so fast I become dizzy. I'm a fucking nympho because of you and you don't even wanna know what kind of Bukake dreams I've been getting off to starring your face."

"Tell me." Not a request – but a demand, with voice lazy and satisfied. "I want to hear everything I do to you. I want to hear how you want to _fuck_ me."

That heavy gaze on him and the way Taichi was speaking dirty, overwhelming honesty and everything, drove Yamato through the roof.

Taichi brushed the back of his hand against Yamato's soft cheek and descended to reintroduce his lips to the curved juncture between Yamato's shoulder and his exquisite neck. Much to Yamato's satisfaction.

Every time one of them breathed, the slick erections trapped between them ground against each other – Taichi's eager, hard and pulsing against Yamato's flaccid piece. Taichi needed release badly, but that's not how he wanted to do this.

With a final tug, he pulled Yamato's briefs over his feet, leaving the stimulating boy exposed to him, and took a long look at what he was finally going to take. That little, tight hole, so eager for him, and just _waiting_ to be plugged by his tool.

"You are so cute like this. With nothing 'cept your jumper on," Taichi said while rubbing the hip bones protruding through said jumper and treating himself to Yamato's contracting abs – with a smug face that still couldn't disguise a happy, loving smile.

"What am I, a dog?" Yamato tore said jumper off and nearly removed his head along with it, "Don't call me cute…" Or he would have had if Taichi hadn't shoved his face into the hole Yamato's head was supposed to pop out of. Now Taichi was smothering Yamato's nose with kisses while Yamato was locked in, looking like a yarn Quasimodo.

"But you are." He still relented and helped Yamato out of his knitted prison while laughing all the way through the process.

Yamato lounged back and stretched all 1.82 metres of his nudity in an epicurean display for Taichi to feast on. Taichi's been having it real bad, so why not make it worse? Yamato brought one finger to his mouth, letting it "innocently" trace his bottom lip. His arm went behind the pillow, tucked in so that the pose really showed off his body. Taichi didn't disappoint and in instants, Yamato was thoroughly caught up in the way he was watching him.

"Did you know that… when I wear this piercing," Yamato trailed off as his index and third finger gently pinched his pierced nipple, "my nipple is constantly erect, so it's very sensitive. Sometimes I need to stick a Band-Aid on it or the shirt will rub it sore. See how it's a different size from my other one…?"

Taichi swallowed a splooge of saliva, looked at the wall, counted to ten so he won't cum right on Yamato's face, and shut his eyes for a moment.

"Jesus, you have a mouth on you…"

Yamato smirked. His bedroom noises were between average and mediocre, but his dirty talk was top-shelf. It did _things_ to people. Witness accounts compared him to a slutty Shakespeare between the sheets when he tried talking.

"I know."

"Are you always like this?"

"Horny?"

"This messed up."

" _This_ messed up? Only with you, Taichi."

Those hot eyes Taichi had were ripping Yamato apart and some of the warmth crawled back into Yamato's face, making him a bit bashful. He wasn't used to not being the one in control in the bedroom.

Taichi caught up to it, grinned, and dove to replace Yamato's fingers with sharp sucking. Coming back up, he moved his thumb along Yamato's chin. "I love you pinned underneath me. I want to open you nice and wide with everything I have. Want me to eat out your arse? Train you to ride my fingers? I want you so bad." The last words came with a husky, ragged tone which spread from Yamato's spine all along his nerves system.

"So come and take me already." Yamato tilted his head up and tasted again his sour flavour on Taichi's lips.

For all his act, though, Yamato was all over the place. He felt so hot being desired like this. Who knew Taichi could be so suave?

Still locked with Yamato in a hot lip-session, Taichi groped for the handle of the drawer near the bed. Once he found it, he pulled it open and began taking out a square condom wrapper. Before he tore it open, though, his arm had been smacked away. Yamato parted from him and he wasn't pleased about it at all.

"I want to go bareback. I _swear_ I'm clean… besides," he grinned, "I don't have any XL ones, tiger…"

Taichi would be an adventure that is definitely going to hurt. His cock was gonna destroy Yamato's arse. It'd be _so_ fun.

"Tiger? Really? Really, Yamato?"

It's not as if Taichi thought size mattered too much and most days he had no interest in cocks. Listening to Yamato wax poetic about how huge he was, however, was a whole new world of uncharted fun.

"Just do it already!"

Taichi pulled Yamato's hips till his smooth, white buns were plush against Taichi's thighs, and spread Yamato to make his separating legs reveal his tight pucker.

Taichi couldn't stop gazing down at it, astounded by the majesty of that blushing star. Yamato's arsehole was pink with only a little bit of blonde peach fuzz tossed about the ring – still untouched. Just thinking he was about to violate it in the most intimate way possible caused Taichi's pre-cum to billow over the top and drip on Yamato's pubic bone.

Yamato rubbed the viscous fluid into his skin, showing Taichi a big, wide smirk.

With a smirk of his own, Taichi lifted the other boy's hips so that they were hovering over the mattress, and blew hot air over the sweet, red passage into Yamato's body. It twitched and Taichi swore he'd stay like this forever – watching in delight Yamato twisting in frustration.

Yamato was experiencing new brands of "hot" with Taichi's intense staring into Yamato's most private parts. He tried wiggling away, but rough fingers dug into his flesh.

"You have a beautiful arsehole, Yamato."

Despite the steamy situation and the saucy compliment, Yamato burst. "You _are_ a beautiful arsehole, Taichi."

Taichi ran a finger around the silken muscle, giving it a tickle. It was so soft; soft and welcoming and _all_ for him.

"What a cute hole…"

Taichi hadn't done anal before – not that any sane girl would let him – so he was more than a bit excited. He sort of had the idea to forego the rest of the foreplay. To have his huge, throbbing dick be the first thing to rip Yamato's puckered arse apart and stretch Yamato completely would be amazing and Taichi wanted to keep Yamato tight till it did. Of course he'd be careful, though.

Quickly looking around for anything to ease Yamato in, Taichi picked up the wine bottle. Together with the rosy remains of its content, he collected saliva in his mouth along with his dripping fluids and Yamato's fresh semen which still clung to his skin. Taichi shoved a few dollops of the mix between Yamato's cheeks and roughly rubbed it along the hole. The rest he smeared along his own shaft, layering his cock with the makeshift lube.

Excitement beat through those blue eyes. Watching Taichi becoming so primal for him instinctively got Yamato on his back; legs falling wide open in a dirty invitation.

"I need you moving inside me. I want all of you all over me," he begged and opened his legs further, as wide as they could go. He wanted Taichi inside so, _so_ badly! He became impossible! "And I want to know it's you; remind me how real pain feels like. I have to know it's real…"

But Taichi was stalling, still afraid to hurt him, and Yamato could just _murder_ him. Yamato was overheated and he was frustrated and he needed this.

"Do you want a safe word?" Taichi asked, confirming Yamato's intuition.

"No! Screw safe word! Just fuck me, you arsehole. Fuck me. As hard as you want. Fuck my brains out!" The words flew out of Yamato with the maximum coherency he managed to master.

Taichi grinned and pinned Yamato's arms over his head with one hand. With the other, Taichi gently ran his finger one more time around Yamato's delicate boy-pussy. The tiny incision contracted and spasmed with the light contact. Taichi was delighted; it reacted so nicely to him. "Aye aye, mate. I'm going to open you up and fuck this fantastic arse of yours till you forget your name 'cause you'll be too busy screaming mine."

Finally, Taichi pulled Yamato's body to him and cushioned Yamato's ass on his thighs. He grabbed a hold of his member and nestled himself in the meeting of Yamato's cheeks. His tip probed the warm pucker and his thumb pushed the hole to the side to widen it.

He leaned over Yamato and whispered, "Spread your legs big and wide for me." Taichi held Yamato pinned down in place so that the pretty blond won't be able to move away from him, pushing Yamato's pale thighs further apart into the mattress. "And I want you to look at me when I own you."

Yamato's bum was just a bit rounded and protruding, like a young teenage girl's. So when Taichi began spreading Yamato from the inside, those lovely buns got themselves into a pretty, red apple shape.

While he was pushing in, Taichi kept a close eye on Yamato's reactions. He gauged for any indication he was hurting Yamato too bad or for something to be alarmed about. Anything that should inform Taichi something was wrong or that he should pull out.

"Stop me if you need to, alright?"

Yamato's head was thrown back into the pillow and he nodded once with his chin, eyes bolted shut. There was pain, of course, but Yamato wanted this just like that and he didn't let Taichi stop. Not even when the widest part of the cock's mushroom tip stretched his ring so much, Yamato choked on little, strangled screams, and clenched the sheets like he was about to rip them apart.

Secretly, Taichi thought Yamato was something brilliant. No one else he knew could go that far for what they wanted. Also, the sugar walls squeezing Taichi like a vice were heaven.That velvety grip of Yamato's butthole was almost bespoken for Taichi – and only Taichi.

When the head broke all the way into Yamato's barely lubricated pucker, Taichi had to use all the control he had left to not impale Yamato in one single thrust. The small muscle grazed the delicate folds beneath the bell of his penis just the way Taichi loved it.

Yamato's breathing was laboured, but he kept it methodical to ease the hurt. There were moments when he felt like he was being torn apart. Still, the sensation of the head popping inside of him was _extremely_ erotic; that sensation of having something in him that was _way too big_ for his body. He was so full and stuffed with Taichi.

Through the next pushes though, Yamato, honest to god, was being halved. He could feel Taichi all the way into his tummy. What began as a satisfying pressure now harshly compressed his stomach and small intestine. Almost squeezing them out of him – leaving no room for anything inside him that wasn't Taichi's fat dick. It became impossible to stop the sharp cries of pain Yamato let out with every piece of length Taichi put inside him, and _still_ Taichi was only half-way to finishing.

Alarmed, Taichi froze, stopping immediately – only to get a look from Yamato that spelt 'pull out and I'll strangle you.' So he smirked and thrust instead, past the first few waves of resistance.

"Oh, god! Oh my fucking god, Taichi...!"

"Hush," Taichi shushed him with a soft kiss, "let's not bring god into this…"

Gentle as possible, Taichi stroked Yamato's trilling thigh before tipping over to Yamato till their foreheads touched – and deepening himself in the process to the sound of Yamato's crescendoing whines.

"You're taking me in so well, Kitten…" and Yamato was also making such perfect O's with his mouth every time it released those lovely, trembling, and never-ending noises. Noises Taichi was becoming obsessed with and searched for ways to make more of them come out.

He draped Yamato's arms around his neck and landed butterfly kisses all over Yamato's face. Then also longer, sweet, and tentative ones, to soothe the other man and distract him from the pains of having a prettybig cock shoved into him. All the while, Taichi cooed small, soothing nonsense – anything to make Yamato relax around him.

Yamato tried reciprocating but, more often than not, he screamed and his lips were unsteady from rattling. All he could do was hold on to Taichi and land shaky smooches on Taichi's shoulder between hard pants.

"… it's almost there… hold on, for me." With the back of his fingers, Taichi caressed Yamato's side, comforting him with soft massages.

In one last thrust, Taichi's guttural groan, and Yamato's shout, Taichi was all the way inside Yamato.

' _My. Fucking. God'_

Yamato's insides were hot and that heat was wet and slick and narrow and tight. His walls were constricting as if his warm hole wanted to slurp Taichi right in and Taichi marvelled at how he fit all the way in to the hilt.

Yamato quivered from effort. His head was spinning. But this was perfect for him – being so filled with Taichi. And there was _a lot_ of Taichi to be filled with down there. Having Taichi move in his body, having Taichi as a part of his body, and Taichi's heartbeat alongside his own – it was strange and nothing Yamato could describe. At the same time, it was intimately familiar. He knew this feeling from before. As if the part where he ended and Taichi began started fading away and they were fusing into something else. As for the pain – the pain made everything real. Made him feel loved and desired. It promised him he was alive. Taichi was meant to fit inside him and his cock was meant for this.

"Oi, Yamato! You OK?"

Yamato opened his eyes and nodded. "Peaches. Now get your arse in gear."

One deep breath. Two. Three. Taichi took them all, trying to let Yamato's inner muscles adjust to his girth before Taichi went ahead and fucked Yamato to oblivion. Also, so this won't end before it had a chance to start. Yamato was a snug fit. It was so good and tight!

' _Don't think about how hot he is or how tight his ring is around you,'_ but the view underneath him was intoxicating. Taichi watched in fascination Yamato wriggling and forcing himself to adapt to the crammed sensation of a having a massive tool inside his arsehole. Yamato was going at it with eagerness he wasn't willing to temper with the undeniable pain inside him. At some point he thrust his hips up, getting Taichi so far in, Taichi was afraid he tore something.

Hissing to _god damn,_ Taichi grabbed Yamato's hipbones and pinned him down, hard, into the mattress.

"Don't…!" he laboured a breath, "don't move like that…"

In response, Yamato ran his palms up Taichi's chest, and around his neck. "So get on with it." He pulled Taichi to him so that his lips brushed the lobe of the creamy-brown ear with every syllable he sweetly gasped against Taichi. "I will have you know I'll let you do some pretty unspeakable things to my butt. I'll let you cum inside. You'll love it."

How the hell was Taichi supposed to hold back, now?!

"You know I'm fucking you with your cum…?" he whispered out the kinky not-really-a-secret.

Yamato purred at the statement. "Fuck me however you want, big boy."

Taichi grinned. "I'm going to fuck every shred of decency out of you."

He pulled out almost all the way and slammed back inside, drawing the most wanton cry he had ever heard from the boy beneath him.

Then he did it again.

Shocks of pleasure rocked their bodies.

Yamato's legs instinctively curled around Taichi's waist – a shameless plea to have Taichi deeper in him, to force Taichi to fuck him harder. His mouth opened that little bit more at every thrust. Yamato wanted it so bad.

Complying was so easy. Taichi moved from being balls deep inside him to sliding almost all the way out – only to be clawed by Yamato, who demanded Taichi pounded himself back in already. Hard and deep.

"I want to make you scream, Yamato." It was like Yamato's arse was devouring him.

Without warning, Taichi flipped him on his tummy unkindly and Yamato could feel those strong knees on either side of his thighs, rimming him in.

Taichi grabbed Yamato's sides and hauled up his arse till Yamato was propped up like prized bitch – waiting to be taken from behind and bred with sticky, hot seed. Taichi's bitch in heat. Yamato also had such a sexy way to hold himself. He angled himself and thrust his luscious, pure-white melons upwards, showing Taichi where he wanted to be fucked. Really accentuating the curves of his soft body.

Taichi allowed himself a moment to enjoy being poised like this over the beautiful boy, whose bum was so shiny with sweat, knowing he would make him his tonight. His and no one else's.

With that last possessive instinct, Taichi's fingers cuffed the slender waist in an iron clutch and painted red, then white, stripes on Yamato's pale flesh.

Taichi thrust, reaming his twenty three centimetres into Yamato's rectum, this time not being gentle at all.

"Owe! Fuck!"

The harsh motion ripped a string of desperate mewls out of Yamato and his knees dug craters into the mattress. Only this time, it was all about _deep_ pleasure. Taichi's heavy length slid over that blessed bundle of nerves on Yamato's little prostate and nudged it just right.

The delicious pitch Yamato's lips reached when Taichi thrust again, the way it fell out of Yamato, and the way his lithe body arched _beautifully_ , told Taichi he found its location. Bloody pleased with himself, Taichi kept on coming, hitting it again and a third time and a fourth. Till Yamato's cock came back to life and the sexed-out blonde was leaking utterly indecent voices. This was so fucking good.

"That's some nice noises, Yamato. Very slutty…"

With one strong motion, Taichi pulled Yamato up against him so that Yamato was sitting in his lap and held him in place with his hand splayed over Yamato's chest. With the other, Taichi cupped Yamato's face so he could demand Yamato's mouth again. When he was done, he pushed Yamato back down to all fours.

Yamato got off from rough treatment. It's not something he said; Taichi just knew. Taichi didn't need anyone telling him how his Yamato loved it. It was very much like 'mato to feel good from violent sex.

From that position on his knees, Yamato eagerly pushed back his hips against the thrusts and pleaded Taichi to be harsh. To be rough, to be cruel. Crueler.

So Taichi spanked Yamato's luscious rear, leaving a large, pink handprint on his tush, before squeezing that supple flesh roughly. "Naughty Yama…"

Contented sighs spilled out of Yamato and he wriggled his little bum. He peeked over his shoulder, revelling in the way Taichi was propped over him. Taichi was amazing – so wild and untamed. Dominating. Domineering. Hard. And just so fucking _huge_. When they locked eyes, Yamato licked his puffy upper lip, making it wet and shiny and just perfect for biting. "Harder, Taichi… " Yamato reached back with his hand and grabbed his second, yet unabused buttock. He pulled his cheek aside, spreading himself for Taichi. Really showing Taichi how wide his wonderful dick stretched what used to be such a puny virgin's thing.

"Fucking hell!" But who wouldn't want to pamper and spoil and amuse Yamato? How can anyone resist giving in to everything Yamato wanted? So Taichi complied, molesting that soft, heart-shaped bum with sharp slaps over and over again, even after his own palm started stinging. Directly on the buns. Just over his thighs. Below the waistline. He left no spot unattended.

"AaaaAAH! Fuck! AaaaAahHH! Harder!" Yamato barked. The more he got, the greedier he became.

Every slap was more confident and more powerful than the former, until Taichi was hitting Yamato with everything he had. His hands were making Yamato's exquisite backside hot and raw, till it turned an almost dangerous purple-red. Till it was swollen and ripe – a succulent little strawberry. It's not like Yamato didn't deserve it anyway.

Fenrir, the wolf tattooed to Yamato's upper torso, was baring its fangs at Taichi, reprimanding him for the rough treatment of his master. But Yamato himself was all about those delicious "oooohh"s and desperate "aaaah"s and pushing back against Taichi's cock, begging for more with, "I want you balls-deep in my rectum! Tear my anus! I'm so wet for you!"s.

Both of them were fully aware Yamato was spewing this nonsense for the fun of it and to get them in the mood. Most of it was complete rubbish – rubbish which worked, but still rubbish. But sometimes it sounded honest.

"Make me yours…" Yamato pleaded.

"I'll make you mine…" Taichi murmured possessively into his ear, all remaining thought vanishing from him for good.

He moved Yamato's arm out of the way and scratched the tattoo, seesawing along Yamato's bones. Yamato almost jumped. He shivered. The skin under Fenrir was a weird, dry patch Yamato didn't have in any other place on his body. It used to get scaly in winter. That's why Yamato had the tattoo there; it hurt the most. It was still a sensitive spot.

"Fuck me like you hate me, Taichi."

Suddenly, sex got a whole lot harder. Faster. Then faster and harder.

"It's so big – AAAaaaaAAHH – You're so deep inside my little butthole…" Yamato's teased, smirking like a son-of-a-bitch. His voice was low, though, almost drugged, when he straightened up to sit in Taichi's lap again and splayed himself luxuriously against Taichi's chest. Red, hurt butt-cheeks meeting sweaty, bronzed thighs – Yamato sat on Taichi's dick and impaled himself to the hilt, going all bouncy-bouncy, up and down, up and down.

He sent his arms over the back of Taichi's head. One blindly looped around Taichi's neck and the other got lost inside the wild brown mane. Yamato fisted Taichi's hairs and pulled Taichi down to him.

Eyes fluttering close in unfiltered bliss, Yamato lifted his mouth to Taichi's ear, dazed like a junky on his fix. "Please… Taichi… make me scream like a whore who's being raped again and again and again like crazy."

This was becoming _seriously_ messed up. Yamato was not right in the head. He was downright mental. Half of Taichi was scared, but the other half was so oversexed it'd go for anything and Taichi could really get off on how much Yamato wanted this.

Driven by a sadistic urge and eager to oblige, Taichi paused and threw Yamato off him. He smirked at the shocked and hurt expression on the pretty blonde's face, before his own raging monster demanded to be put back inside its new favourite toy. And, seriously, Taichi stood nil chance against its and Yamato's forces combined.

With some rough handling, he pressed down on Yamato's shoulder blades and pinned him flat on the bed so that Yamato's cheek was nestled in the sheet and he couldn't move. Only that delicious bum was left hanging in the air.

In an instant, Taichi was banging Yamato silly and hushing the whimpers below him with a long, rough kiss. Sucking soft and hard on his kitten's lips, being above Yamato like this made Taichi dip even deeper into Yamato's buttery hole.

The vulnerable position exposed Yamato's sensitive nape, delicate and delectable, pierced by yet another glittering metal which was beautiful on him. Taichi arched over to him, licking it to the base of Yamato's head, and whispered, "I love you." He laid a trail of tender kisses along Yamato's elegant back, drinking sweat off the hollow of Yamato's shoulders and peppering them with warm smooches before following the dictation of Yamato's spine. To his waist, to his hips, to his sensual curve.

Taichi sunk his teeth into Yamato's fair globes of fat and released, leaving angry, red marks and a few new slits. "That's for speaking out of turn. Sluts don't get to make demands."

He pulled back his hand and spanked Yamato again, harder against the fresh wound, smearing the blood over Yamato's right buttock and basking in the sound of the jiggling flesh. Red suited Yamato, Taichi figured. Like a pretty, juicy plum.

Yamato yelped in shock and still shamelessly begged for more. He wanted to be hit, so Taichi slapped him. He wanted to be humiliated so Taichi spat on him. He _needed_ to be punished and abused, so Taichi locked Yamato's elbows in place above Yamato's back. The dangerous position threatened to break them at any wrong movement while Taichi was stuffing him. His massive cock drilled into Yamato with a brutal rhythm as the pretty boy lay there beneath him, immobile and helpless.

Taichi stroked Yamato's thighs, obsessed with his body, and drove Yamato harder into the bed with every ram. He fucked Yamato so hard, Yamato couldn't hold himself up anymore and dropped flat on the bed, taking it. But Yamato demanded to be nothing more than a sex puppet, a fuck princess, a cum hole, a sleeve for Taichi's sperm to drip from. He whined like a bitch every time Taichi fucked him. So Taichi yanked those lush, golden strands backwards and held Yamato's head for better leverage.

Yamato yelled, tearing the bedcovers with his nails – and asked Taichi to hurt him more.

He was something freaky to say the least. But the way Yamato flirted with pain had always been something that impressed Taichi as equally terrifying and exciting… and now it was exciting his dick.

There was a lost, glassy stare in Yamato's eyes and they were blank with the absence of intelligence. Around them, his expression was twisted in an exquisite mixture of pained pleasure.

Taichi elicited voices from him Yamato didn't know his throat was capable of. He threw his arms backward, digging his nails into the flesh of Taichi's thighs and leaving deep scratch marks in them.

Then Taichi did something absolutely too amazing with his pelvis, rolling it in circular motion inside of Yamato.

While Taichi covered him like a sexy blanket, he was crashing Yamato's body under his heavy torso and putting his entire weight on his cock. Taichi bit down hard on Yamato's shoulder and used his feet to close the gap between Yamato's legs a little bit more, tightening his passage. Those sweet cries of delighted pain and impossible pleasure Taichi got in return just spurred him on, driving him wilder.

He grabbed Yamato's shaft and gave it a harsh squeeze, so much harder than Yamato would have done himself. Taichi pumped and massaged it, delivering proper attention to all of Yamato's fun-loving parts. All the while, he landed butterfly kisses on Yamato – from Yamato's left clavicle and down his arm. "I want to lick you all over, like a kitty-cat, Yama…"

Taichi gave Yamato small kisses every time he was about to hurt him – Yamato noticed that.

He was also fucking Yamato like he tried to get him pregnant. Taichi gripped Yamato's hips tighter so he could pound Yamato into the mattress over and over with _even more_ force, tight enough to bruise.

With one sharp motion, Taichi span Yamato on his back, still attached to Taichi's dick. He hooked Yamato's legs over his hard-working, tan shoulders while gripping the soft, abused thighs in his fists.

Taichi forced Yamato into a nice, wide-open spread-eagle. Get that _really_ deep penetration and fuck Yamato senseless.

That got Yamato to hit those high-pitched notes and swear like crazy. Taichi was tearing Yamato's rectum with reckless abandon while the boy beneath him was barely anything more than a wracked, blonde pile that joggled helplessly on the bed.

"AaaaAAAaHH!"

Taichi stroked Yamato's innards with the tip of his penis, fucking him to an inch of his life, and all Yamato managed to do was scream Taichi's name. Scream for his mate with broken letters. Yamato dug his nails deep into the hard flesh of Taichi's back and ferociously dragged them down, forcing a hiss out of Taichi's throat.

Hiss, and screw him harder. Harder. Harder. So much harder!

As far as Taichi was concerned, he was fucking Yamato so that he stayed fucked. So no one could undo that – so no one could _un_ fuck him. So Yamato could never touch someone else without thinking about Taichi. Fucking him raw. The idea that someone else would see Yamato like this…

God! The things Yamato _did_ to him. Taichi jackhammered his hips, and, in some outside world that didn't belong to what they were doing now, he registered a tell-telling _crack_ from the beams of the bed. Like fuck did he care. As far as Taichi was concerned, the bed, the floor and the building could all break, and he'd still drill Yamato till every single drop of his spunk dripped into Yamato's guts.

For Yamato, it was as though he was breathing through Taichi's mouth; existing through his touch. They alone gave each other meaning. He was aware of very little. There was nothing worth thinking about. Only now existed and now was abstract, rippling, riddled with pleasure and bliss.

"Oh god! Keep clenching! Yes! Fuck!" Taichi lost it. Yamato's small boy-pussy tightened and clenched around Taichi violently. That was ungodly. Yamato's incredible tightness was squeezing him like a vice and all Taichi could do was grab the pale buttocks and slam ruthlessly into it, like his life depended on it. Past the erratic spasm of muscles and straight into that sweet spot inside Yamato that made him go nuts. Taichi'd thoroughly abuse Yamato's prostate.

He leaned over Yamato, buried as deep as he could go. He wanted to see Yamato's face when his endorphins hit outer-space. Between their frantic pants into each other's mouths, Taichi took Yamato for one last, inappropriately gentle, shaking kiss and held his hand.

And in the intervals between precious few moments, Yamato was Yamato and Taichi, fused.

"Tai…Taichi!" and Yamato exploded into anti-matter.

His body arched obscenely over the bed as his head dropped backwards and his legs went numb. Yamato made such a fantastic, helpless hurt noises when his cock erupted. The thick, sticky streams sprayed his chest and stomach all over, bathing both him and Taichi in warm, white goo.

God, Taichi loved it. But he loved Yamato's pleasured expression more than anything. This is what dreams are made of.

Now his own mad pleasure was getting too much and the familiar tug in his balls became erratic.

One final, bestial groan, a loss of breath, and Taichi screwed his eyes shut as he exploded inside of Yamato, shooting his hot load into Yamato's body.

A soft mew dropped out of Yamato's flushed lips when Taichi's warm, syrupy cum spread inside him and flooded his belly.

Even after his release, Taichi continued moving inside Yamato, making sure he deposited every single milky dollop in Yamato's sodden hole.

Every move brought clarity.

They dropped, boneless, onto the bed, skin damp and bodies trembling with the aftermath of impassioned pleasure.

Exhausted, shaking, sweaty Taichi collapsed on Yamato's chest and into the small pools of cum without a care in the world.

But his eyes opened into tiny, tired slits to appreciate the view he had from there: Yamato's body was very well loved. Yamato was perfect and abused completely. The curtain of his hair fell across his face, soaked with sweat and fresh semen. His head lolled outside the bed as if he was a marionette and he was gripping his racing heart, almost crying. He looked so debouched, so absolutely, thoroughly, impossibly fucked Taichi almost wanted to do him again.

Not that Taichi's experience was any different. He lost control over motoric functions and the soliloquy left in his brain was basically a choir of happy rubber ducks quacking an energetic tune. His sense of being existed only when he exchanged sloppy, after-sex kisses with Yamato between quick inhales. He was extremely proud, watching Yamato ride out the hurt-so-good ecstasy of his orgasm again, unable to either move or breathe.

Taichi tugged his raw cock two more times before fully relaxing, spilling the last fat dollops ofseedinto Yamato.

Yamato tried moving his legs – big mistake. He grabbed his left foot and tried messaging the nine circles of hell out of his ankle. "Fuck! My shin! Auh… It's cramped."

This! This is how sex was meant to be like! The tectonic plates shook the world around Taichi and bred volcanos while he lost himself in the feeling and forgot who he was.

Somewhere along his joy-ride, his peripheral vision caught Yamato looking at him with two large eyes.

"Hey there." Taichi gently moved the damp blonde fringe from Yamato's eyes and helped him massage said cramped shin. "You alright?"

Yamato closed his eyes, long eyelashes against smooth skin. Very slowly, he fluttered them open again and cooed sleepily, "it's just… the way you fuck… you really are a monster, 'Chi."

"Oh?" Taichi chuckled and kissed Yamato's pink, heated cheek.

"Sod you."

Taichi nuzzled a gentle path from Yamato's high cheekbone to his lips. "It's your fault. You pull these things out of me. I shagged before but, _damn_ , Yamato, you're fucked in the head. Like, something in your brain is _abnormal_."

Yamato's gaze fell to the tool still well tucked inside his pooper, lingering very much on purpose. "It's not the only place I'm fucked in." He shot back to those dopey browns which'd start snoozing at any moment. His smirk eased into a tired smile and Yamato ran his fingers through Taichi's hair, rubbing his scalp the way Taichi liked it.

"I take it you liked my goods?" he said. _"_ At least now I get why your mother called you _Ta-ichi._ "

Somewhere between almost purring in delight and becoming redder than how he guessed Yamato's butt-hole looked, Taichi couldn't talk.

"Is this what you do with your Girls-of-the-Week?" Yamato persisted.

"They'd break." Taichi rolled Yamato to the side, still not willing to pull his dick out. He did pull Yamato closer by the waist so Taichi could lie against him while he rubbed Yamato's tummy.

As for Yamato – Yamato could swear his arse had been elevated into a new plane of existence while his loins grew vocal cords and would start singing a cappella at any moment. He had sex in his life. Definitely enough of it, but it wasn't anything like this. It was never with _Taichi_.

Best friend, brother in arms, blud, sexy-beyond-reason _Taichi_.

Taichi who knew what Yamato would want now: with one hand groping behind his back, Taichi dug into the drawer of Yamato's night stand. He moved aside a tube of lube –whose existence he should have verified earlier – and found Yamato's flick-knife as well as the plastic bottle of the disinfectant. While they were pushing stuff around, his fingers brushed a piece of paper lying beneath all the other objects.

When Taichi glimpsed inside, he smiled at the small treasure he found: an old picture of them together, near a shaved ice stand by the beach. According to the chewed-toffee Taichi had for a face in that photograph, he got a brain freeze that day.

With a folded tissue paper, Taichi dabbed the sanitizer along the blade. He pressed the freshly sharpened edge against the skin on the small of Yamato's back after flattening the area with his hand. There was slight resistance against the pressure at first, but the fine and liquid lines began taking form and after Taichi pushed the knife in harder, they surged out.

Yamato, singing something – muscles lax and unwound with the familiar feeling of separating skin folds and fire crackers jumping around his lacerations – lay prone on his stomach and let Taichi incise into him. Warm, thin strings spilled down his heated skin and fanned out from the sliced flesh like a map of the underground railway. Having someone else cut him was vastly different from doing it himself. The quiet pain bred certainty wherever Yamato had no control. It's a type of intimacy that, unless you experienced it, you wouldn't believe it existed. Not really something you can go around explaining.

Taichi observed and – in a way which was a bit new, but mostly old and extremely familiar – was very connected to everything Yamato is. Sex wasn't enough for Yamato. He can't be loved like everyone else – only in his own way. He can only be loved by the language Yamato understands love with and that is love for him.

Taichi slid down the rocky path of Yamato's spine with wet, open-mouthed kisses. A warm and open palm caressed the sharp juts of Yamato's shoulder blades as he went. Where the hot lines of opened skin parted, Taichi lapped at the wet globules which rose to the surface.

Yamato smiled – the one reserved for Taichi. Only Taichi can hold a knife to his back… and bring harmony. Slice him up so he could fall apart.

When the work was done, the words "to me…" became a part of Yamato's body, right beneath Fenrir.

With his pointing finger, Taichi trailed the length from one mark that would stay on Yamato till he died, to the other.

Fenrir wasn't a large tattoo, but it was enough for people to presume things. "You know they won't allow you into onsens with this, right?" Taichi grinned, with one which is made of one-hundred percent dirty innuendos. "You're filthy, Yamato…"

"Couldn't care less about what a bunch of old poofters have to say. Tattoos were symbols of pride during the Edo period, so…" Yamato shrugged, easy. "And why did you decide _now_ is a good time to talk long-term consequences? You were there when I got it."

"You know..."

Yamato could _hear_ Taichi's eyebrows wiggling with suggestions.

"You do know there are tattoo-friendly onsens, right? Or we can book private rooms, Taichi, if it's _filth_ you're worried about."

Taichi laughed, but it subsided fast.

"Should we talk about this?"

Yamato growled his dissatisfaction. "Now?!"

Taichi was willing to swear on a bible Yamato stuck out one pretty lip at him. It was glossy and plump and Taichi, amused, turned Yamato towards him and murmured against that offensively cute lip – if it was indeed there – "Yamato…" Then he nibbled on it like it was his favourite snack.

Yamato gave his reply through biting back and mashing them into a long, cajoling kiss. They should, but, for the moment, he wanted to pretend there was nothing to talk about and enjoy his aftercare.

"Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," Taichi permitted.

"I'll want an explanation about 'Kitten', Taichi."

And Yamato laughed hysterically at Taichi's imploding face. God, this was perfect! What? Did Taichi really think Yamato wouldn't notice he got a new pet-name?

When the tingling down his back subsided into a background thrum along with his high, suddenly Yamato had the unexplained urge to cover his face with his elbow and hide beneath it. Suddenly, there was just _so much._

"Thank you…" His voice was wrecked and muffled as he dusted some renegade goose feathers from the space between them and threw his arm over his face.

Taichi wasn't sure if he should be worried or if being confused would do just fine for now. "What are you on about? I think I should be thanking you."

Some semblance of a noise rolled beneath Yamato's protective appendage and it was from far off; from the places he visited when he smoked enough.

Taichi nuzzled Yamato's wrist lazily and enjoyed himself with just looking at Yamato. Just waiting. Just telling him, "I feel more now than I have ever felt and I'm glad and I can feel this with you," with the same intensity Yamato gave him when he loved him.

At the impact those words left on Yamato, that single moment in which Yamato didn't breathe, Taichi climbed on top of him. He covered the entire length of Yamato's body and planted small kisses on any part of Yamato's face that remained unhidden while Taichi cleaned him from blood and sperm.

Slowly, Yamato blinked his eyes open. His arm dropped off his face and Yamato encircled it around Taichi's waist. It was worth it – to lift his head and meet some of those kisses with his own. Feel Taichi's thumbs grazing his cheeks with each and being tender together.

Yamato's breath was in disorder, his hair was in disorder, his body was in disorder, his life was in disorder. His new cuts itched and he couldn't stop scratching them. And this is how it should be. He let Taichi smash his sense of pride but, for this, he figured he wouldn't mind giving in over and over and over again.

A bit of a dull rustle and Taichi pulled the sheets around them both, not caring at the moment for the cooling semen still crusting over them.

He lowered his heavy head to rest against Yamato's shoulder. This was amazing – being so close to him. And special. Taichi knew what it was like to have sex with Yamato. He knew how Yamato looked naked, how he sounded, how he smelt. He knew how Yamato acted. He knew what he wanted, where, and how rough Taichi needs to be. He knew what made him hard and what consistency Yamato's cum had. He knew his waist and back were extra sensitive. He knew what it's like to be inside Yamato. Yamato knew what it's like to have Taichi inside him. They took parts off each other and made the other a part of themselves. This is how Omegamon felt. There was no sweeter innocence than this. Taichi felt very good about all this. He'd been searching to relive the feeling from back then and it's right here, at home. With the one person who would understand.

Yamato hoped this would become a permanent arrangement. Staying like this is everything he'd ever need. He would never have to leave the bed. Taichi's sex milkshake had tons of fats and proteins – Yamato could have it for breakfast, lunch, and supper.

All of Taichi's liquid heat, still buried inside him and dripping out occasionally into his piercing, was very filling.

Taichi's pacifying heartbeats against his own were the best sound Yamato had ever heard and their meditative pace lulled him into sleep.

It was like coming home.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17: Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Through the Forest, Above the Trees, Within My Stomach, Scraped Off My Knees, I Drink the Honey Inside Your Hive, You Are the Reason I Stay Alive.

Yamato woke up to realise he was being utilized as someone's Mr Teddy. Those first few seconds were very confusing and he almost rolled around to sack the intruder. Until he remembered he got laid last night and all was good in the world. Even his toes were happy.

Yamato loved the smell of sex in the morning. The aroma of sweat doused with humiliation. They had fun yesterday. It was good.

The room was all about the musk of sex and youth in a sunrise dyed with pastels. Like it, too, was still basking in the afterglow.

Likewise, he realised something was lodged inside him and it made him feel very full. Normally, he hated spooning or cuddling and all the washy rubbish. It got too hot in the icky, sweaty way which wasn't the fun icky, sweaty way. Now, though, right now, this was nice. Besides, Taichi always got cold when he slept by himself. That guy was a fireball of kinetic energy and needed to move non-stop or he'd freeze. Ergo, Yamato was perfectly fine with indulging him.

He closed his eyes again, the sun sieving through the thin skin of his eyelids and leaving a red afterimage on their surface. It was the first time he greeted the morning with someone like this. Naked and tangled. His legs, still sticky with cum, interlaced with Taichi's in funny angles. Taichi's arms were folded around him, possessive. Yamato's head was tucked under Taichi's chin and Taichi's chest pressed on Yamato's bruised back.

No, Yamato never thought he'd enjoy someone else's presence like he did now. Yes, even with Taichi's flaccid cock still snuggled up his arse.

Also, while he won't admit it out loud, he didn't want to go through his life without once, just once, being protected the way Taichi's arms around him protected him now. Even when, like now, they left more bruises on him than anything else had.

At this moment, Yamato's entire body felt sore – but very lovely.

His bum was hot and stinging. He liked his bum hot and stinging. Carefully, to avoid chafing the wounds and bleeding over Taichi, Yamato shifted around to have a peek at his slumbering mate-in-more-than-one-way. He melted on the spot.

Taichi was _gorgeous_. His face was relaxed and pleased, framed by a stray, Burnt Sienna fringe. His skin was smooth and his body warm, reflecting the rays of the sun that gave him such a creamy golden colour.

He was also superbly cute when he slept; always so innocent. Nine years, and not a change on that self-content mug.

With that in mind, Yamato fell to the pillow again – the soft, ringing twinges of pain across his body lulling him to sleep.

Taichi woke up next to his brand new, shiny blonde.

Yamato's hair was fanned out on the pillow, a Geisha's golden accessory, and it was all about "after sex" – the way Taichi loved it best. With the tip of his nose, Yamato nuzzled the pillow and cuddled under the blankets, releasing a soft coo.

Well, fuck.

Self-restraint gone, Taichi moved some dishevelled, yellow strands from that sleeping face.

' _What the fuck, Yamato? What the fuck?!'_ Yamato's spit drooled all the way over from his slanted mouth into the pillow in _litres_ and splattered all over the side of his face. That was "Drool Me a River" MTV clip waiting to be filmed. No wonder he stayed undercovers whenever he and Taichi shared the bed – he needed the metres of fabrics as extra wipes! That dumb mug of his was fucking epic! Woken-up-Yamato would never publically show this arseholed mug of a face – which made it a face meant to be loved! That was a twat's regal, no-IQ-left face and Taichi wanted to wake up to this doltish exhibition every day.

He raised the blanket to peek on Yamato's naked body – _'Hot'._

Slobbering like dog or not, Yamato still was radiant. And messed up. Physically – not just mentally. The cuts on his back crusted into brown, scaly lines which flaked at the edges. His waist was bruised with dark hand prints, and flecked with many other possessive marks. Fucking hell, the whole image screamed "possession!"

His arse was round and red like a ripe pomegranate with blue and purple blotches all over. Some of those patches verged on being black, while others already brightened into a sickening yellow shade. Dry blood bunched into crisp haemoglobin over the incisions Taichi bit into him.

Generally, it was fair to say Yamato Ishida was a pile of hot and sticky mess.

' _Shit, he was amazing last night.'_

Taichi cradled Yamato's head, blew into his ear, and breathed in his milky shoulders. With the backs of his fingers, Taichi trailed along Yamato's thigh, charting skin that was so warm from sleep. He couldn't wait for Yamato to wake up so that Taichi could see his eyes. _'God, his eyes!'_

He kissed along the lean muscles of Yamato's strong back; small pecks which evolved into playful nibbles. Taichi rubbed it, licked occasionally, and revered it entirely. Their skins contrasted beautifully and Yamato looked even paler under Taichi.

Shit, Taichi wanted Yamato to wake up already. Problem was, Taichi didn't want to be the _cause_ of him waking up. Yamato's a rotten bastard in the morning.

Unfortunately, since he had been fucking all night, Taichi also had the urgent – but completely expected – need to pee like he'd been fucking all night.

He exited Yamato and the colour hot-fuchsia creeped on Taichi's face at full force: Yamato's arsehole was _so_ stretched and _so_ red. Yeep, Taichi had most definitely been fucking all night – _Heavy fucking_. The red-pink condition of his face had only escalated when he noticed his own dick needed a quick wash as well.

Taichi's motions were bringing Yamato back to life and they threatened to do the same to his cock. When they stopped, and Yamato had that familiar, satisfying sensation of taking a massive shit, followed by weight lifting off the bed, Yamato was as awake as what a Kg of cocaine can do to a person.

"Taichi, come back to bed."

The fear diffusing from him was almost palatable for Taichi. Fear that Taichi would leave. It was emphasized further by Yamato's hoarse voice, scraped thin by spending the better part of the night screaming.

Taichi shafted that little part in himself which was offended Yamato could even think that. It was Yamato after all – Taichi always knew where he was coming from. Yes, _even_ if he himself was never there.

Instead, Taichi marched down back to the bed, kneeled over Yamato, and gave him a quick kiss. Then it wasn't so quick any longer and as Yamato pulled him down to him, Taichi began pushing the sheet off of Yamato's body.

Sloppy, sexy morning kisses, hands everywhere, and the skin under filled the vacancies left by the places they didn't need to go to or the things they didn't need to do. When he was convinced he satisfied him, Taichi disentangled from Yamato's limbs and rubbed the tips of their noses together sleepily while pointing at his knob. "Do you really think I'll let you wake up alone, you arsehole? I'll be back in a sec, I'm just gonna give mini-Taichi a little wash."

Yamato followed the line he was directed at and turned a shade of pink, that was very appealing on him, when he spotted the undeniable, brown stain there.

But he wore a dream-stricken smile on. The one he had sometimes, when he was off in his own world, only this time Yamato dedicated it to Taichi.

"Please fuck me on repeat," Yamato cooed.

His smile alone hit Taichi's fuzzy chords and made him happy. Authentically happy – not just the kind of happiness people feel when their day was less shitty than expected. The real thing. When the world exists for the moment.

And the sexy request didn't hurt either.

When Taichi retreated, Yamato watched him go. Specifically, he focused on that wriggling little bum he wanted to take home and could just… _'rawr_!'

And, also – _'mini my arse! There's nothing mini about that!'_ There was a whole lot of dick in him last night!

Yamato giggled. Fucking giggled. His knees bounced up and down on the mattress, so overjoyed he couldn't believe such a gorgeous body finally became his last night. His! His! HIS!

There was a strong scent all around him which Yamato traced to the heat permeating from where their bodies lay. It was soaked in the sheets and lingered within the blanket.

It was Taichi's scent. Grass, sweat, sun, summer, and the outdoors.

And it was his scent. Fresh linens, sleep, Irises, metal, and smoked flora.

It was a new scent; a new creation of their own.

Yamato side-eyed the room's entrance to make sure Taichi was still in the toilet, rolled over to the side Taichi occupied when they slept, and sniffed the pillow there with a deep intake of air.

Needless to say, it was also the unequivocal scent of ball-slapping butt sex with a tang of semen on top.

The bedcovers were drenched with whatever filth the human body was capable of producing and were gagging for a wash.

Post the initial high, though, some semblance of rational thought seeped to the forefront of Yamato's left lobe and he wanted to beat it back down to the abyss whence it hailed. Soon, he'd have to face the answer to where _this_ is going. Was that a one off? Did he _want_ it to be a one-off? Or would they call this their "playtime" and make it their dirty little secret? Would it mean for Taichi what it did to him?

He didn't get to the overthinking stage where he would have analysed the situation out the whazoo. When Taichi came back, he practically head-dived into the bed, climbed behind Yamato, and pulled him against Taichi's chest with a "yoink!"

Taichi moved stray hairs from Yamato's face – "morning, sexy!" – and nosed the dip near the formerly white neck ."You smell amazing…"

He could look at Yamato all day and memorise every detail about him – from his blue eyes, which were still cloudy from sleepiness and euphoria, to the split golden ends, and all the way to the tiny mall lodged behind Yamato's knee.

"I have no regrets, Yamato," he answered one of the many questions Yamato still hadn't had a chance to panic about, but that Taichi was aware was there without Yamato needing to.

So Yamato got brave.

"Taichi?" The name was poised as a cautious question.

"Yeah?"

"I want to kiss you till my tongue goes numb and fuck you till I sprain my waist…"

Taichi arched over Yamato, in a peek-a-boo sort of way, to smooch Yamato's forehead, upside down, and laugh like crazy.

Yamato grabbed Taichi's chin, making good on his word, and kissed him and kissed him and kissed him – into a mutual brain-damage if he could. Hands in Taichi's hair, squishing his cheeks, squeezing his biceps, kneading his _other_ cheeks. It wasn't until Taichi seriously needed oxygen that Yamato let him go.

"Want any breakfast?" he murmured into Taichi's flaky lips, still low-key trying to lock them back to his.

Taichi hummed, pleasured-out.

"I prefer eating you," He said and slapped Yamato's arse. "That was quality breeding. I fucked your brains out, didn't I?"

He was half expecting Yamato to get unpleasant but, through sheer force of post-sex-hormones, Yamato diverted the conversation and dropped the topic. "This is the second time you refused breakfast. I'm getting worried."

With one last peck to Taichi's shoulder, Yamato moved from under him and started towards the edge of the bed.

He stood up.

He fell down.

His legs were jelly, his abused bottom half was protesting against any added effort it was asked to extract, and his lower back rang with the dull thrum of random aches. Taichi fucked him sore!

"Shit, man, you ok?!"

Along with his guilt, Taichi scrambled over to Yamato and bent forwards to pick him up.

Yamato slapped Taichi's arms away, his face burning with a suspicious, rosy hue. "You try carrying me, Taichi Yagami, and I will break your arms and tie them into a pretzel, so I swear!"

There was this courageous attempt on Taichi's part not to laugh, but he failed at it.

"See, Yamato? You're just like a cake."

"Enlighten me."

"You are sweet, warm, soft, and full of my cream."

"You were counting the minutes till you could tell that one, weren't you?"

"Just made it up, actually."

"Feeling good about yourself?"

With a wild smirk, Taichi changed the subject, "did you know you say some pretty messed up shit during sex? You act all shy sometimes, but you're one kinky little sex doll on the inside, aren't you, Yamato?"

Taichi didn't miss Yamato's ears going red. He had to dodge a heavy artillery of used underwear when Yamato yelled, "shut up!"

Taichi crawled up to him, running fingers across Yamato's shoulder blades. "It's a real turn on… "

Speaking of his cream and getting really turned on, Taichi's seed began trickling down the innermost parts of Yamato's thighs – slowly, tantalizingly – leaving them with soft trails of milk. It dripped out of him till it pooled on the floor into white slugs.

The image evoked something primal and possessive in Taichi. His cum was going to goddamn _stay_ inside Yamato.

"Up you go." Taichi yanked him back into the bed. "For someone who just got his arse pounded, you're a royal pain in mine…"

He lowered Yamato down underneath him, getting them more horizontal, and wrapped his arm around Yamato's waist.

"The fuck are you doing?!"Yamato yelped.

Instead of an answer, Yamato felt his legs being separated. Hands went for the curve of his hips and to the rounding of his arse. Then, his body was being gently probed.

Taichi pried Yamato's bum and was treated with the puckered butthole – all lovingly puffy and raw from being molested all night.

Funny how some things which are supposed to be odd and taboo can be so familiar; like it was the natural order of the universe.

"Fuck me?" Yamato stretched backwards, pliantly tossing his arms over his head with bedroom-eyes and bedroom smell, waiting to be spoilt.

"No."

Yamato _almost_ did something similar to pouting prettily, sticking out one wet, soft lip. He only got into the habit of doing that last night and already that _damn_ lip was driving Taichi bonkers. Taichi traced it with his fingers and grinned. From there, he continued to nibble on Yamato's sharp jawline.

"I'm going to make love to you."

The bedsprings groaned under his knees while Taichi climbed between Yamato's legs.

Yamato laughed hysterically for a good whole minute – both from Taichi's attempt to chat him up with cheesy-arsed lines and because he didn't know what to do with himself with all this bliss that befell him.

"I am going to make love to you and you're going to fucking love it!" Taichi looped Yamato's legs around his waist and slipped inside him, making them sigh into each other mouths.

His cock went in like _butter_. Taichi opened Yamato up damn good. Yamato was loose, hot, and wet, as if he was melting around Taichi – completely different from last night.

Also, without a reason really, they were laughing around each other's faces because somehow this was so bloody funny. In an instant, their tongues played inside each other's mouths.

Taichi placed soft kisses behind Yamato's ear, small pecks which dropped down to his neck. He found the sweet spot he discovered last night and began suckling happily on the hollow of Yamato's already hicky-full throat.

Yamato made such cute, small voices of pleasure when his arms wrapped over Taichi's back, grabbing the solid muscles rippling under his palms.

For Taichi, there was no doubt – a moaning and panting Yamato was a _stunning_ one.

He gently bucked inside Yamato, rocking him slowly up and down the bed, and looked into Yamato with glazed eyes.

For Yamato – it was as if Taichi was really seeing into his soul and loving everything he saw in there. _'Holy shit!'_ Yamato'd never been this embarrassed in his entire life. But in a good way. Actually, he wasn't sure. Was it? It's like all his systems were on overdrive. He tried rocking against Taichi and hiked a knee over Taichi's hip, begging him to go faster. Or harder. Or both. Better both. Get them back into something familiar.

Taichi shushed Yamato with small kisses all over his face. He was patient, holding Yamato in place and slowly loving him. Sliding up and down the pleasure spot inside Yamato's arse with something akin to reverence. Something tantric, making Yamato ride the high for what to him felt was _freakin'_ hours.

Taichi landed a long peck on Yamato's brow, smelling his sweat and his sex, and smiled like a drunken pillock. "Get used to this. I intend to do it until we die."

' _Holy shit! HOLY MUMMY FUCKING SHIT!'_ No one _ever_ treated Yamato like this before. He couldn't stop the stream of hurt little sounds he made – and that Taichi _really_ liked – or that fantastic flush of horny butterflies in his belly which had their own set of butterflies. He was absurd.

Yamato wasn't sure if he wanted to die, or if he was already dead after miraculously managing to get on some brain-fried deity's good side during his lifetime, and get _this_ as his reward. An eternity of sex with Taichi in the afterlife. Death is awesome!

At that moment, Taichi cupped Yamato's cheeks – the upper ones for a change – and caressed Yamato's lips with his own dry and chapped ones. They were ridged. Flaking. Taichi still hadn't had his compulsory glass of morning water, but all Yamato managed doing, as his eyelids drifted lower and he was dying, was to quietly moan into the kiss. His mouth fell open against Taichi's with quickening, small pants of pleasure and his legs clamped around him.

Looking Yamato dead in the eye, Taichi took Yamato's wrist and planted a deep kiss against the pulse. Then, he buried his face in Yamato's shoulder, giving an oral to Yamato's throat with every gentle thrust. His hand slipped between them, prompting Yamato to lift his leg and give Taichi better access. Yamato's cock was just begging for the attention.

Taichi jerked his hips forward, and Yamato crossed his ankles around Taichi's waist. "Love making", as Taichi put it, only got a wee bit faster, but the familiar heat already began expanding in the pit of Yamato's stomach. It won't be long for him now.

All the while, with Taichi bumping his hips against Yamato's arse, going into him repeatedly, Yamato had infinite, brilliant songs writing themselves inside his mind. When they'd get to City Hall, he'd have some new noise ready.

Fascinated, Taichi watched Yamato throwing his head back with loud pleasure. When the blushing, happy cock jerked in Taichi's hand, Taichi was a kid at the arcade all over again. Well, Yamato's joystick was _really_ fun.

Along came those _beautiful_ sounds Yamato made with that voice of his – that hot and bothered voice of his – the perfect little "O" with his pink lips, the cheeky line between his eyebrows when ecstasy was exploding on him, and that feline arch he formed with his back.

' _Perfect'_

"Wow, Yamato… your face…" Taichi leaned over his mate – no pun intended – and licked Yamato's sweetly tired face, while Yamato's milk poured over Taichi's hand in hot, eager spurts.

Departing from Yamato's face for a moment, Taichi followed the spermies stuck between his fingers and wiped them clean with his tongue, much to Yamato's delight.

Of course, Yamato had a good laugh when Taichi's face twitched with some mad Tourette.

"Nobody told you to show off, you arsehole."

Taichi pouted.

Yamato grabbed his face and kissed him but good, taking away all that "yucky" stuff from Taichi's mouth.

When he was done, Taichi was staring. "You know, Yamato, for me, it's not about how rough I go. It's not fun for me if it's not fun for you, but as far as I'm concerned, I _was_ _making love_ to you last night."

Yamato rolled to the side and hugged his pillow. "Please stop saying shit like that. It's a boner killer…"

He made a purposeful move to bury his head between Taichi's thighs to return the favour – only to be pushed away.

"Don't worry about it. That one was for you." Taichi grabbed Yamato's shoulders, stroking up and down his arms. He left a soft peck on one of them, relishing the sweat and the taste of used bedsheets.

Yamato made a face. A shy one. "But I want to…"

A shit-eating grin like the one that popped into Taichi's ridiculous face has yet to be seen on this side of the hemisphere. "My dick isn't going anywhere."

Taichi was promptly shoved out of the bed and an airborne pillow followed suit.

"Not nice, Yamato!"

"Go fornicate yourself."

"I'll fornicate you!"

"Language doesn't work that way," Yamato said when he yanked Taichi back to bed. Yamato rolled Taichi on his back and threw one long, possessive leg over him. He also had the time of his life squeezing Taichi's pecks and lazily pinching the dusky nipples under their centre.

"These ain't boobies, Yamato."

"These are better than boobies, Taichi." Yamato ran his hand up and down Taichi's sternum and buried his face in Taichi's hairy, man-boy armpit, where he nosed yesterday's deodorant and today's sex while murmuring, "these are _mine_ …"

They lay that way for a while. Taichi rubbed Yamato's lower back to sooth his muscles, occasionally moving over ink-branded outlines and into his skin. Yamato was drifting back to, and out, of sleep on top of him.

Taichi had a hunch. He rolled out from under Yamato's weight and left him on the bed. "Give me a mo."

After disappearing into the kitchen for a minute, Taichi returned with a beeswax candle. He whipped out the lighter out of Yamato's discarded jeans and lit the thin rope at the end of the wax stick.

"Lie on your stomach," he commended.

Initial confusion turned into excitement and Yamato obeyed. A moment of anticipation, and scorching hot droplets of molten wax were singing his slick back. He sighed in deep relaxation as they consolidated and cooled on his skin.

When Yamato's back was covered in welts and Taichi ran out of space, Taichi helped Yamato turn around. He continued dripping on Yamato's chest, making sure there was a drop for each of Yamato's pert coral buds to enjoy.

Yamato crossed his arms behind his head, damn pleased with all the babying he was receiving, as milky, boiling globules progressed down to his navel.

Taichi locked eyes with him.

Yamato didn't do anything to evade the upcoming heat. He just watched it unfurl.

So Taichi let the white droplets hit the crown of Yamato's half erect penis.

Yamato winced at the pain and kept his eyes closed. He drove his teeth through the flesh of his lip and ripped it.

He _didn't_ tell Taichi to stop inflicting him with the ecstasy.

When the space between Yamato's burning thighs swam in pools of wax, and when the skin there was raw with blisters, Taichi licked it all off to assuage the pains. The white chips that got stuck on his tongue were spat to the floor.

The healed wounds along Yamato's penis would become small scars – gifts Taichi gave him as souvenirs from this first night.

When Taichi was done "cleaning" him, he scaled along Yamato's perfect, flat tummy, up his peachy nipples, and into his mouth – where Taichi gnawed further on Yamato's bruised, red lip. The biting widened the holes till blood flew between them and gushed down Yamato's chin, soaking it with dark red.

"No one's allowed to hurt you the way I do."

"No one can hurt me the way you can." Yamato smiled into the words, warm and open – it was the one reserved for Taichi. Definitely.

Give or take a few minutes, somewhere between being kissed over and over, Yamato's metaphorical light-bulb switched on. "Wait, Taichi, how did you realise you're into men?"

Taichi had one hand splayed luxuriously across Yamato's chest, tweaking with the silver rod piercing Yamato's pert bud. The answer for this question was surprisingly easy for a change. "I'm not into men. _Trust me –_ " he opened big eyes at his mate, emphasizing the point. "I checked. I'm into _you_." Something which he previously missed on account of being buried twenty three CM deep inside Yamato's delicious, love-passage of an arsehole, occurred to him. "Nine years, huh? Holy crap, Yama."

"Yama _to_. Seven to nine. When I was eleven, I didn't really think about these things."

"So… when -" Taichi paused and coughed out some morning mucous, "when did it start for you? You know… when have you fallen? And how did you realise you want to shag me?" He lazily caressed the crook of Yamato's elbow, trying not to sound like this was going to be just about the best story told since FMA.

Yamato practically puked those nine years all over Taichi – mysterious beefy chunks included:

"God… I asked myself the same bloody thing a fucking million times. You know, it's not even just that. I can't even say that I was… am just… you know… with _you_ additionally to everything else I feel. I mean, it's that too and I do. But it's all the feelings bleeding into each other. I told you – it's like my feelings didn't even exist in the world before I had them. I feel everything. Fucking everything. I just..." he knew those three words, but they weren't enough at all, "A _lot_. I can't compare it to anything. And I _really_ do want to shag you. A lot. All the time. It's weird, you know? It's like one day I thought 'this one! I want _this_ _one_ to ruin my life!' Shit… I never wanted to feel like this… but then you smiled like you do – like a twat – and holy crap, I was done for!"

Taichi snorted and rubbed Yamato's shoulder with a 'there, there' sort of compassion.

Yamato sucked in a breath – serious but, at the same time, he was far away. "I wanted you to do things to me. In some place, I enjoyed pissing you off. Just so you'd react to me – 'cus that's what you made me do." He paused, staring at ceiling. Taichi didn't rush him. "You know, thinking about it now, I couldn't wait till you'd crack and push me down. I imagined myself getting…" he let his breath go, "anyway, it was very confusing. You were just beautiful and fantastic and-"

"Sexy?" Taichi suggested, wiggling his eyebrows like they were the ones rolling around laughing.

"Straight? Unobtainable? Simply busy with other aspects of your life?"

Taichi He kissed Yamato's temple after staring at him for what may have been some long minutes, letting him continue talking, undisturbed.

"… and, you know, you were the only person whom I cried in front of in years? And you challenged me. And made me grow. Remember when we first got to the Digital World? You got all those emotions out of me so easily, all the time! It fucking terrified me, blud, that effect you had on me. There was this something about you that unnerved me and made me think about you all the time. I couldn't control myself around you and I _hated_ it. It was like being trapped in my own fucking body. Eventually, I noticed that you're on my mind 24/7. That I wanted something _out of you_. It drove me bonkers. You bugged the fucking hell out of me 'cause I sure as fuck didn't know what to do about all that. I wanted… _thought_ I wanted to be left alone, but there you were – knocking down my walls like a sledgehammer glued to a Type 10 tank, getting closer to me than anyone else and being my friend - _always_ being my friend. Holding my hand so I won't run away-" he dipped his palm into Taichi's, "while I was bogged down with being a right nutter. I thought I need to beat you. I was a jealous shithole. Until I figured out what I _really_ wanted is to be _with_ you. Fuck, even when we did beat each other up, it was such a rush, you get me?" he laughed.

"Can't argue with that. You still have the meanest left hook my face had ever said hi to."

"But, at the same time, I was relieved, Taichi. I didn't have to be the strongest person in the room for a change. You naturally took control and cared for everyone. Something about you being the leader was right. Gave me confidence. There is just this atmosphere about you I always wanted to be under, even when I disagreed with you. I always believed in you." He turned to look at gorgeous man yawning on his shoulder. "I think that's also why I freaked out on you during the Meicoomon business. I was scared shitless to lose you. Or for you to lose yourself." He yanked a feather out of his pillow so it'll stop stabbing his face and inhaled the scent of the pillowcase. "And you believed in me. You and Gabumon. Taught me how to be a friend and everything friendship meant. Since I met you and Gabumon, I was no longer so lonely. I was no longer the same person. I let go and became myself."

"And you came swooping in on Garurumon to save me just in time! A true friend in need, Yamato. I-"

"You mean just in time to turn into a keychain…?" Yamato spat. Seeing Taichi still alive back then… ' _god'._ Hesitation, mistrust, irresolution – about their friendship and Taichi's place in his life – they faded that day. Yamato hadn't been so scared before in his life. He worried his lip under his chompers. "Piemon really gave you a good going over. I should have been there sooner..."

"You were there exactly when I needed you." Taichi gave Yamato a few more minutes to let it go. "So –"

"When did I begin wanting your dick? Not sure, but I started becoming aware of it aft-" he coughed phlegm into a tissue and stuffed it into the roll, "my first wet dream…"

"Tell me?" Taichi nuzzled the creamy shoulder he employed as a pillow and caressed the sensitive spot on the inner side of Yamato's elbow.

His huge puppy eyes were set on max and he was so disproportionately cute Yamato could die! _'Seriously, how does he do that?!'_ Yamato was ashamed to call him a grown-ass man.

On his part, Taichi acknowledged he's cute. Damn cute. Did he feel bad about it? Nope. He got all perked up when Yamato continued.

"God, it's not something you forget, Taichi. Funny thing is, there was nothing _inherently_ sexual about it. It was more of a flashback to the day Devimon separated us and you and I had that fight in the snow. Is just, everything in the dream felt totally different. The entire focus was different." He closed his eyes. "I swear, it was like someone turned on the zoom-in on my touch sense and it went haywire. I mean, I really, _really_ felt you in it and I was ultra-sensitive. To everything. Your hands had that grip on my shoulders and on my thighs. There was this pressure of your body on mine. Your heat. When you were on my arse – especially that one-"

Taichi sniggered, and Yamato realised he was petting Taichi's ego just about as much as he petted his cock. So Yamato dropped his voice into those deep chords and stretched his hand to cup Taichi's smooth, warm buttocks; give it a proper squeezing. "The warm breath from your mouth to my neck…Your eleven-year-old crotch, Taichi… Eleven-year-old me between your legs-"

"Go on, you tosser." Taichi wiggled his bum, asking Yamato nicely to set it free. Of course the bastard refused, but after Taichi swatted him, Yamato did revert to his casual tone.

"I felt all the pain and the welts you gave me. How I loved it. It was so… _vivid_. All of it combined became _weirdly_ erotic. Even now, I still feel that way. When I woke up – sheets were wet and I spilt over myself. First time. My dad had the brains to clear some time off his schedule to have 'the talk' with me before summer camp, so I didn't think about it too much at first. But later there were more dreams with more details and less clothes. And… I started realising I got into all those fights with you 'cause I wanted to… touch you. Maybe. Because I liked it when you mounted me... It was getting seriously weird, but I didn't want it to stop, either. After the first time we fought Diabolomon and I returned home from Shimane…" he inhaled as his story came to a conclusion, "was the first time I touched myself while thinking about you. Consciously, awake, fully aware, fantasizing about you and wanking. And I haven't stopped since. It's just-" he squeezed Taichi's hand, a monument of their proximity, "this…"

Taichi was quite for a few seconds, mauling all that information over in a sex-tired brain. "Shit, that's one hell of a compliment! Born to be a porn-star baby!"

"Sod off…" But Yamato gave Taichi the big-eyed, you-have-no-idea smile, "you were the protagonist of many of my X-rated materials. I tried to stop several times but it didn't work. Every time I got home from someone else's house, I jacked off to you. Couldn't help it. I mean, I had some crushes in between, yeah? I didn't pause my life just 'cause you were my favourite. But, as you know, it rarely amounted to anything. Anyway, at the same time, while you and the other boys were discovering sexploitation, girls, the wonders of the internet, and how to erase your search history, I was discovering you. Normal stuff you'd do when we hung out – looking at me, talking, and, so help me, sometimes just breathing around me – made me feel so much more than I should have. You have no idea how much I wanted it, alright? Eventually, the shit hit the fan and I figured it all out. Does that freak you out? Do I sound like a sick fuck enough for you yet?"

Taichi kissed one high cheek-bone. "Maybe. But you are my sick fuck."

Yamato gave him a flat look.

Taichi shrugged. "Not really. My philosophy is that as long as you keep it in your head, it's a whatever-floats-your-goat territory. I'm pretty huge on freedom of thought, you know. And I didn't know scuddely shit till yesterday, so... Besides, it's not like we haven't jerked off thinking about our female friends once in a while. I'm not gonna judge you about what goes on in that cracked skull of yours."

He met Yamato eye-to-eye, with all the seriousness nine years of leading others cultivated in him. "What I _do_ wanna know is why you never told me."

"Why would I?"

"I would hav-"

Yamato pressed four fingers to Taichi's lips and kissed them on top. "You would have done nothing, Taichi."

Before Taichi had the opportunity to argue, Yamato clapped his fingers around Taichi's jaw and kissed him directly. "Don't. The first, and only, time I actually considered telling you about it, was the first time you snogged a girl in the smoking den behind school. I wasn't daft back then either." He unclamped Taichi's face and watched the red outline he left in Taichi's lips fading. "And the last thing I wanted was to hear you make up a heap of bollocks about how you 'don't see me that way' or 'don't want to jeopardize our friendship'."

"But when we were over at your place two weeks ago, you said you didn't keep secrets from me. I'd call this one _big_ fucking secret, Yamato"

"No, I strictly said I didn't _want_ this to be a secret. Past tense. And it's true. I didn't. It just sort of happened on its own."

Taichi almost wanted to strangle him, but he punched Yamato's arm and kissed him again instead. "I _am_ going to be miffed about it for a while and honestly, I only forgive you because I was the bigger dick-"

" _Was_?"

Taichi ignored him. " _And_ because you really do have a luscious bum. But I _will_ me miffed about it." And then it dawned on him. "You spent nine years watching me hook up with other people?"

Yamato shrugged – ' _no big deal'_ – and looked away.

"What _are_ you?! I spent one night, _one bloody night,_ watching other people hooking up with you and I almost went mental! Seriously, _what are you?!_ "

For a few fleeting seconds, Taichi relived the months he used to check up on Yamato's scars. He made Yamato strip and spread his legs while Taichi shoved his head down there and examined Yamato's thighs – what was it like for Yamato? _'What. Are. You?!'_

"I told you – I got used to it. Besides, I didn't expect–" he waved his hand around the room as if to illustrate his point, "…you'd come over, take my shirt off, and have sex with me. I just love being with you…" He buried his face in the pillow. "God, I feel like such a mess."

"But, god, are you a sexy mess," Taichi laughed, but it didn't make up for how distraught he really was.

Yamato un-buried himself and asked, "Are you really angry I didn't tell you sooner…?"

Taichi scratched his sideburn and looked down to Yamato on the pillow. "Yes. I'm going be angry about it for a while." He curled his arms under Yamato's shoulders and dived for his belly-button, blowing warm air on that spot which made Yamato shiver and watched the yellow fuzz around it sway. "How did you think I'd feel? Now I gotta wonder if you didn't trust me and thought I'd pull away from you."

"It's not tha-"

"Cause you know a ten kilometre pole bedecked with an arsenal of sharp objects and glued to our arsecheeks on both sides won't do that?"

"Of course I do." Yamato buried his hands in Taichi's hair and messed it up, just a bit aggressively.

"But I also really hurt you, didn't I…?"

That ends of Taichi's hair tickled Yamato's chest. Yamato buried his hands in the wild, brown bush, stroking the warm scalp below and undoing some knots. "Not really..."

" _Didn't_ I?" Taichi squeezed Yamato's sides, being kinda rough. Exposing just how pissed off he really was.

With calm blues, Yamato's slender digits moved to cup bronze, high cheekbones. "A bit. But like I said – I trust you. So…"

He earned another kiss from Taichi.

"Doesn't mean I'm gonna be less remorseful about it," Taichi said. "I guess I'm more pissed off at myself for not knowing than you not telling. I mean, how could I _not_ notice? I feel like clueless fucknugget-"

"Don't!"

Yamato rolled on top of Taichi and crashed hard into his mouth, frenching the hell out of him to shut Taichi up effectively – but in a very pleasuring way.

"Don't…"

"But _why_? Why _so much_?"

One more time, Yamato butterflied his smirking lips on Taichi. "You make me hard."

"Yamato…" Taichi gently pushed him off. "What do you see in me…?"

Yamato didn't expect that. It was so obvious to him. "Everything you don't, apparently…?" he swept Taichi's messy fringe behind his ears and put his own palm where Taichi's heart beat the hardest, letting it pulse through Yamato's fingertips. "Truth though – I don't know. I-l… all of you. For being you. For existing. I can't dissect you and pick a part I like better. Even when you're being a little bugger and I slap you, I won't change anything about it because it's _you_. I lo… because you are _Taichi_. I also love who I am with you. It's a cliché, but I really do think you make me want to be a better person. You make me a better me. Take it as axiomatic. I study physics, so trust me when I tell you we still don't have explanations for most things happening in the universe. Guess we're the two atoms in quantum entanglement." He laughed at his own metaphor like a twit. "I swear you're the only idiot who couldn't see how much I admired you." He probed Taichi's belly button for gunk and hummed. "Kiss me?"

Taichi smiled, more at the little words Yamato omitted than anything else. "How am I expected to say no to that?"

"You're not." 

With his smile getting larger, Taichi rested his hand on the back of Yamato's neck and pulled him closer so Taichi could abide Yamato's request, his thumb grazing fine, yellow hairs.

Taichi flipped them and Yamato's arms made a pretty circle around Taichi's neck.

"How did we end up here?" Yamato asked between exchanging gentle kisses, having all his whims accommodated, and being a pile of mushy porridge brewed of goodness that almost made him feel shame for existing.

"What d'you mean…?" Taichi was far too distracted with trying to get those pink lips back to him.

"You…" kiss, "with…" kiss, "me…" kiss, "doing…" something absolutely awesome Taichi just did with his tongue and which made Yamato wonder if that flexible muscle practiced football as well, and if so – with what balls? "…this?"

A small pause followed.

Taichi landed another kiss on Yamato's chin. "'Cause you're my best friend." Taichi got up to his knees and landed kisses on Yamato's wrist, "'cause nothing that feels this good between two people who love each other could possibly be wrong," on Yamato's navel. "Cause you're beautiful," down his thigh, "cause it's natural," Yamato's knee, "'cause it's fun," calf, ""cause we make so much bloody sense," until he reached Yamato's – unnaturally? - clean foot and started massaging it from the heel to the cushions before giving Yamato one final kiss on it. "'Cause I… you too…"

"And the real reason?"

Taichi quieted down. He continued rubbing Yamato's foot, as if he could make the question go away if he ignored it hard enough.

Yamato growled and, kind of reluctantly, yanked his limb away. Taichi was exceptionally good with foot-rubs and Yamato credited his football warm-ups for that as well.

"You still haven't answered me, Taichi. What got you so upset?"

Figuring he should just get it over it, Taichi hurled the worlds, "I saw you masturbate with Mimi's undies and it turned me on so hard I ran to my room and decided to join in?"

A stiff pause spread between them. Next time Taichi peeked at him, Yamato was changing colours faster than an LCD trip.

This is it. Taichi was gonna get it. Yamato was going to rearrange his face into modern art and never talk to him again. When Yamato moved, Taichi winced, screwing his eyes in preparations for the knuckle sandwich that had his name on it.

It didn't come.

Taichi gave it another minute, but when his face remained intact, he opened his right eye into a _tiny,_ cautious slit.

Yamato was facing away from him – legs crossed, chin planted on the root of his hand, fingers hiding his mouth. Tender pink dust settled on his cheeks. Taichi would have loved it if he didn't fear for his dear life.

From the motion of Yamato's throat, Taichi guessed Yamato swallowed saliva. Yamato's pupils moved to the edges of his eyes so they were locked on Taichi's and he said, in lower decibels compared to the nuclear set-off Taichi expected. "…That's it?"

"W-what?"

"That's why you were freaking out…? Taichi, it's _normal_ to get hard in a sexual situation. It's also normal to masturbate after that. It's not like you started fapping at the entrance. I _will_ clock you later to preserve my sense of masculinity, but-" Yamato tried playing it down, "I always masturbate when you play football."

Blinking was the only function Taichi was able to perform. Took him a good long while before – "you spent all our games blissed out?"

"Do you think I could sit through the entire game otherwise? Have you _seen_ yourself topless?"

When Taichi levelled Yamato in colour, Yamato figured this was about as good as that conversation would get and diverted, "How about you? Since when is cross-dressing your thing?"

"Not sure," Taichi shrugged, "I guess one day I just wanted to see the body under all those tight clothes. I mean, have you seen yourself _dressed_?" He started working Yamato's foot again, rubbing the tension out of Yamato's muscles. "Then I thought about it a bit and realised digging into the nature of my feelings isn't really important if the only person I can think about is you. Only I _did_ end up obsessing over it. A lot. And I just figured – I probably always felt like this. Since way back when. With how life went, everything we have… I think I was just distracting myself too much to notice. Also," he finished with a cheeky smile. "You are _way_ too sexy."

"You think that?"

It caught Taichi off guard – to hear Yamato ask something like that. He never thought blonde-bombshell Yamato would have doubts in this field.

"I told you, Yama, you are the sexiest son of bitch I've ever met."

"Yama _to_ ," he corrected – just to be a prick. "… It's different when you say it."

It was Taichi's turn to be a prick and he added one, stuck-out tongue, "Yama _to_ , every time you wiggle your tail, another man comes out of the closet."

Yamato pushed Taichi's tongue back into his mouth along with his own. Fluffy, sloppy snogging ensued.

"And Taichi?"

Taichi made and inexplicable noise at the back of his throat while trying to catch Yamato's tongue again –outside of their mouths this time. Yamato chose to interpret it as 'yeah?'

"What's with 'Kitten'?"

Mouth opened, mouth closed, and Taichi stammered for a good whole minute before resulting to his secret weapon again: those big, wide, warm puppy eyes Yamato, with his love of canines, couldn't resist. "Can I? It's cute and sexy…"

Lucky for him, it worked wicked-well.

"Not in public."

"Yay!" Taichi rolled over Yamato and buried his face in Yamato's lengthening hair, rubbing and scratching behind Yamato's ears the same way Taichi did with his cat. "Kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty!"

"Get off of me, Taichi!"

Yamato tried pushing Taichi off, but the effort he put in it was far too lacking. He gave up and let Taichi turn him into Taichi's favourite new Calico for the best part of an hour before Taichi had to pee.

When Taichi finally got off and went to the bathroom, Yamato's surprisingly-not-limping footsteps followed him into the blue-tiled room.

Yamato's eyes raked over Taichi's toned body. Sweat beads lined glistening tracks from Taichi's broad shoulders to the small of his tan back.

"Taichi?"

"Yeah?"

Nails dug into the flesh of Taichi's thighs. "I want to overdose on you like addiction to narcotics. I want to wear your skin. I want to make my bed inside your grey matter and never leave the sheets." They ascended, flaking bits of Taichi's skin all the way to his flanks. Yamato's cold hands curled and hugged Taichi's waist. He gave Taichi a soft squeeze, released, and trailed his palm down the palpable definition of Taichi's abdomen, through the curls of his bush, and all the way down to Taichi's cock.

"Taichi…?" whispered a tender voice down Taichi's ear and made all the hairs on his neck stand.

"Yeah…?"

"Can I watch you pee?"

If his dick weren't held hostage, Taichi would have had a canvas copy of his face printed on the ceiling and his actual face smashed up from hitting said ceiling.

"What?! Why?!"

"Don't you think it's very erotic?"

Abusing his newly found position as Taichi's "kitten", and with his rock-star charisma, Yamato managed to make watching someone take a piss sound like a completely valid course of action. Like _Taichi_ was the one overreacting to this perfectly normal request.

' _You're cheating again, Yama!'_

"To see the person closest to you when they're most vulnerable? The proof of _trust_?"

"I don't think that's normal for most people, Yamato…"

"Most people don't understand love the way we understand love." Yamato snuggled up to Taichi's shoulder, kissing a route down Taichi's back. "Please? I want to love everything that comes out of you."

Because he meant it, Yamato's way of reasoning was quickly and meticulously depriving Taichi of resistance.

"Only if you promise it's only _my_ piss you get to see."

Yamato nodded and sat on the small stool between Taichi and the rolling paper, inspecting Taichi's dick like he expected Santa Clause to pop out of it at any moment and deliver him gifts.

Having someone stare at him while trying to do number one would rank pretty high on Taichi's 'Things I Never Thought I'll Do' list and it took him longer than usual to get his business flowing. Apparently, it was shy. Of course, Yamato's stare could make most people cower before him, so having this fact also apply to people's body parts made a lot of internal sense.

But, finally – relief.

Out of nowhere, Yamato latched his mouth unto the side of Taichi's cock, as farther away from the stream as possible. And that was it. He just stayed there.

Taichi stared at the blonde head attached to him, but Yamato seemed pretty damn content with continuing to do whatever bizarre task he set for himself.

Yamato's thin and dexterous fingers, which were playing a bit with Taichi's bollocks, moved to the back and enjoyed themselves with trailing Taichi's sculpted bum cheeks. Yamato was having a wicked good fun, wasn't he?

One naughty digit slipped between Taichi's warm globes and cupped a feel of his sweet, sweet butt hole.

Taichi jumped a mile into the air. Yamato didn't try applying pressure, but Taichi's backside was still on 'No entry – trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again' mode.

When he was about to pull Yamato up and throw him out, though, he saw one confused blonde and a tiny yellow droplet running down Yamato's chin.

"Fuck, Yamato! I am so sorry!"

Taichi frantically tore off bits of toilet paper and tried wiping off Yamato's face.

He didn't know how it happened, but somehow Yamato found himself trying to dodge Taichi's assault of tissues while, having very mixed _'eeew'_ feelings about that single sample of urine clinging to his jaw. Fuck.

"Stop it already!" He rejected Taichi's hand when it almost hit his eye and yanked the toilet paper out of Taichi's fingers to wipe his face by himself, and without the dangers of Taichi's poorly coordinated assistance. "It's my fault anyway."

But Taichi was still skipping from foot to foot, so Yamato raised his arm for Taichi to grab it and help him up.

"A hot shower could be nice now."

The idea spoke eloquently to Taichi's sticky thighs and back. With a wicked grin he took Yamato's hand and lifted him to his feet.

Hand in hand, they walked into the adjacent washing room. It was a standard, minimalistic thing: a washing stool, a douche head, and a square bath. In other words, if Taichi and Yamato got a bit frisky in here and raised some havoc, the world of interior design wouldn't suffer much of a blow.

While Taichi brushed his teeth in front of the cabinet mirror, Yamato pulled out a clean wash-cloth and started filling the bath with steamy water.

Taichi's upper back was bedecked with deep scratch marks and the purple suckling blotches on his shoulder stood out even against his tan. The sight made Yamato's lips stretch up from one ear to next year.

Sighing in the face of the stupendous levels he hit on the trash-o-metre, Yamato went over to Taichi and clung to his back. He brushed his fingers against the hollow crescents he stapled into Taichi's flesh, nibbled on Taichi's ear a bit for good measure, and Inhaled all that sex-sweat.

' _Yum.'_

When Yamato straightened his gaze, Taichi's reflection smiled back at him from the mirror and moved its hand behind him to caress Yamato's thigh softly. They looked good together. They really, really did.

A train of hickies scaled the extent of Yamato's neck. When he ran a finger over the bruised skin, Taichi made the stupidest face, all chuffed and self-satisfied. He marked Yama. ' _Fucking terrific.'_

"Brown suits you."

Yamato draped an arm over Taichi, his palm finding a place to rest on Taichi's chest, and watched their bodies meld; skins of milk on coffee.

"Yeah, it does."

With that same naughty digit of his, he smoothed the length of Taichi's spine, watching the strong muscles squaring Taichi's neck tense in anticipation. He still let Yamato play around with him. He didn't even wiggle away when Yamato slipped a finger between his buns and tickled Taichi's tender ring.

With a small kiss to Taichi's left temple, Yamato dipped his index only an itty bit deeper inside Taichi, passing the tight threshold only as far as his nail went. Just seeing Taichi's cute reactions made Yamato melt away into a gooey puddle!

Taichi's firm tush twitched this way and that, round and round, but Taichi didn't say anything and didn't try to escape this time.

"Will you stop fucking around?" Taichi's mouth morphed into a perfectly symmetrical crescent. "I wanna touch me some wet Yama."

When Taichi made the half swirl to grab Yamato's arm and… _extract_ it out of his bum, he caught on to the deep, sexy scratch marks lining his back; Yamato's stinging and kinky territorialism.

Thoroughly amused and fully understanding what riled Yamato up so much, Taichi dragged the misfit under the shower. They stood face to face and Taichi turned the tap on the lukewarm stream till it slammed into them.

Taichi picked up the cloth and dragged the rag down Yamato's spine, circled one of Yamato's hips, went over the curve of his soft buttocks, and slipped it, serpentine, between Yamato's thighs in slow, seductive motions – cleaning him properly and pulling their bodies closer in the process.

Yamato wrapped his arms around Taichi's neck. He buried his face in the crook leading to Taichi's shoulder and lifted one toned leg up to grant Taichi easier access. Dutifully, Taichi climbed into the cleft between Yamato's cheeks and wiped his pucker in slow, circular motions.

Once making sure Yamato was squeaky-clean on all fronts, and backs, Taichi threw his head back into the warm stream and got some de-funking for himself as well.

When he returned, Yamato braved the sheets of water cascading over them. He ran his hands through Taichi's thick curtain of hair as it fell past his shoulders, stroking soothing caresses into Taichi's scalp. He leaned back for a moment to appreciate Taichi in full.

"You're so pretty, 'Chi."

Somehow, after a total ofthreehours of sex _,_ those five words, that one sentence,was the trigger which made Taichi aware his face could spark up blush as fast as Yamato's _._

"Are you trying to kill me, Yamato?"

"I'm trying to bed you."

Vapour still rolled from the bath of steaming water when Taichi turned off the shower's tap and led them into the adjacent tub… while singing "Rub-a-dub-dub, 'Chi and Yama in the Tub."

"Yama _to."_

"Yama _to_ doesn't fit the rhythm and – _mmph_."

Yamato shoved himself into Taichi's mouth and smothered it with his own till their tongues matched. Someone had to shut Taichi up.

Soaking in the water's warmth, the next half hour was spent cleaning their bodies from soapbuds and bubble-flowers. Taichi washed Yamato's hair, starting at the sensitive canals behind Yamato's ears. Very gently, Taichi twined his fingers around fine strands and lathered shampoo into them till the soap was frothing in bubbles.

And Yamato was completely his.

First to climb out of the bath was Taichi and he did it begrudgingly. He hated every single second during which he had to push Yamato off him. He hated disturbing Yamato, period. And seeing Yamato the way he was now was too uncommon. Gone was that pissed off frown that usually flittered over Yamato's mouth or the little furrows in his brow which indicated he was overthinking things. Right now, the world can sit on a pike and Yamato won't budge a single millimetre. He was the liquefied embodiment of all things "mush".

Unlike Yamato, though, Taichi wasn't sitting comfortably on someone else and didn't have a chest to lean against or a shoulder to doze off on. Taichi got cramps in his arse. Plus, his fingers got all wrinkly and it freaked him out a bit.

To be fair, though, it wasn't all bad for Yamato. Before Taichi snatched himself a towel, wet rivulets rolled down his bare chest and his entire naked, chiselled body glistened with water. Yamato couldn't stop staring for the life of him.

With the buckets he salivated over him, there was no way for Taichi not to notice. Taichi winked at Yamato and dragged the towel over his body in a sluggish pace while shaking his tasty-looking booty to an imaginary beat. He turned around and bent over to give Yamato a good show before trying to pull off towel-gymnastics. It was when Taichi shoved the poor cloth between his legs and started humping it, male-stripper style, that Yamato got depressed.

"You can stop sexuality assaulting my towel now. You killed it. The mood is officially RIP."

"Boo, Yamato. Boo!"

Yamato eyed him, prettily subduing the hints of smiles, and stood from where he was sitting, disturbing the water.

"How do I smell? Still like sperm?"

Taichi grabbed Yamato's hips to keep Yamato still while Taichi smelled him. Belly button, abdomen, arms, shoulders, neck. "You smell like a fresh, gay baby." He got inside Yamato's mouth and licked the interior of his cheek. "Taste like sperm, though. Brush your teeth."

Yamato pushed him off. "So, _do_ you want breakfast?" He leaned over to unplug the drain. He rarely used the bath so there was no point in leaving the water there to attract bacteria.

"You taking the piss? You can barely stand. You'll burn your pubes off. I don't want you even remotely associated with fire right now," Taichi slapped Yamato's arse to demonstrate his point. "Let me. I'll make your favourite!"

Rejecting the offer was hard. While Taichi didn't cook often, he was the unconquerable breakfast king.

"Alright. Go on then. Move your fat arse out of my eyes."

When Taichi moved to pick up his boxers, Yamato slapped Taichi's butt – because petty retribution.

Taichi did one last, little bum-jiggle at Yamato's face. "It's not fat – it's _cushioned for pushin'_ , baby." He slipped into his jeans and exited the shower with one final, cheeky smile.

In the kitchen, Taichi stood over the countertop, cutting apples and bananas into a small bowl before pouring in exactly 100 ml of none-sweetened yogurt he sprinkled with muesli. A pinch of cinnamon and black pepper, and he was good to go! Just what Yama liked best. Of course, Yama didn't tell anyone something so fruity was his favourite. The official claim was that he ate miso soup every morning or something with bitter black coffee on the side.

Oh, and what a coincidence, a Yama was growing out of his shoulder right now. With a whiff of a familiar, tingly scent, the Yama planted his chin on said shoulder and peeked over it to see what Taichi was doing. He also wrapped his arms around Taichi when the later was washing dishes, sweetly nipping a ticklish spot under Taichi's ear. He brushed his lips against Taichi's sun-kissed nape – that one really made Taichi shiver.

"You like it, Taichi, huh?" Yamato cooed into Taichi's ear and ran one wicked finger Taichi simply couldn't ignore, down his spine.

When Taichi turned around, he saw Yamato bring the two just-a-bit-too-long sleeves of Taichi's previously discarded shirt to his nose and give them a happy sniff before sashaying away towards the staircase. Swaying his hips in a way which made his bum jump and dance from side to side. Oh, and he had nothing on him _except_ Taichi's shirt.

He disappeared somewhere on the upper floor before Taichi gave one last, exasperated glare at the knife and cutting board still littering the sink, and obediently followed Yamato's invitation. Really, Taichi didn't even know a man's bum _can_ do that! Damn jiggles…

The view meeting Taichi upstairs was Yamato bent over the back of the sofa with that _damn jiggly thing_ of his pointing sky-high in a perfect, feline-esque angle.

Sex. Of course.

When he saw Taichi, Yamato lifted the hem of his shirt so that his arse was in full, shameless view and slapped it. He let it bounce prettily for a bit before holding it parted to indicate he would really appreciate getting fucked in it. This was far beyond his control. One taste of Taichi, and his prostate was insatiable – always wanting more.

The moment Taichi was near enough, Yamato reached back, took Taichi's hands, and guided them to his rump.

"Again? You sure you're all right?" Taichi asked, honestly concerned, while squeezing the buns he was offered. Yamato was a bit crazy, somewhat greedy – and fucking hot.

"I've waited nine bloody years, Taichi. That's almost half my lousy life. So get these off, get it up, get it in, and let's get it on."

"You a sex maniac or something?"

Yamato ground against Taichi's crotch, pushing harder into the bulge that was growing to greet him.

"Are you?"

Taichi fisted Yamato's hips on both sides. "Probably, yeah. You know, showing me your pucker like this is practically a mating call," Taichi, thrusting gently against Yamato.

"And what does this look like to you, exactly? I want to mate, mate."

Wearing his shirt, Yamato had Taichi's scent all over his body. Then there was that way the slender curve of his shoulder peeked over the fabric, white on white. Like Yamato belonged to Taichi. This concept got Taichi right back up sure as any dry-humping. Yamato was just an oversized cat in the height of mating season Taichi wanted to spoil.

Taichi groaned. He didn't even bother taking off the trousers he worked so hard to get in to. They just hang around his hips and showed the top of his arse while he went in for sloppy seconds and generously took Yamato from behind.

Since Yamato was already so loose, as well as leaky-moist and well-lubed from all the cum remnants inside him, Taichi started with a heavy pounding from the get go, giving Yamato what he wanted for ten minutes. Up until he filled Yamato with more seed. When Taichi was pulling out, his dick made very satisfying squelching sounds, swimming in all the liquids Taichi filled Yamato with.

For dessert, Taichi slapped one sperm-splattered bum cheek and let Yamato lead them to the kitchen so Yamato could finally have his muesli.

They wined and dined to celebrate the day Taichi didn't try to extort or beguile breakfasts out of him, is what Yamato said after sucking on a spoon. After that, it was back to the bedroom.

The bed was a wet disaster.

' _This. This is how good, proper shagging looks like.'_ At least as far as Taichi was concerned. He had no choice but to take off his trousers for good this time. Why did he even bother?

They dived straight back into the bed, skin and skin meeting under the cold sheets; plains welcoming curves. Yamato could lie here for the rest of his life and do nothing except solve Taichi-related geometry problems. Changing sheets and retaking that shower could be postponed.

Taichi's leg was bent on the mattress and Yamato lay on it –Taichi's spent cock mushing against Yamato's hip. Taichi's arm was trapped under Yamato's weight, but Taichi used the position to stroke Yamato's bum.

From the edge of his eye, Yamato found yet another reason to go on living. Peeping from the mug on his night-table were the flakey remains of his weed, already neatly rolled into a beautiful joint.

Taichi followed Yamato's line of sight to find out what captivated him so much, and poked Yamato when he learnt his rival for Yamato's undivided attention was a spliffy.

"Are you really going to smoke now?"

But Yamato already had the stick well in his mouth and it was well on its way to be lit. All Taichi got was a damn pleased hum of affirmation and a damn pleased grin teamed up with it.

Yamato was also blessed enough to find the vino remains from last night. Ergo, he was now nursing both the joint _and_ the bottle, so they were switching places between his hand and his mouth in a periodic circulation.

He took a deep, long hit from the green into his lungs and pounced on Taichi, flattening the other boy on his back with a loud "eek!"

Yamato held in all the harsh fumes until he meshed his lips with Taichi's hard enough, locking them together until the smoke passed on from his mouth to Taichi's lungs.

Initially, Taichi struggled against the searing, choking substance.

He forced himself to relax and reeled in the pain.

The smoke was passing lazily between two willing mouths.

When they needed to resupply on oxygen, Taichi let the smoke trail out of his nostrils and curl into the air. His toes were tingling too and it was kinda funny, so he giggled.

"There, now neither of us has any virginal parts left." Yamato left a small, mischievous pack on Taichi's full cheek. "Well, almost…"

From Yamato's too pleased of a face, Taichi understood the integrity of his butthole was in danger. Of course Yamato would want to even out the score. Interestingly enough, Taichi's eternal, inner adventurer was more curious about it than it was phased. Bloody hell.

Yamato propped his chin on Taichi's chest. "I want to touch you."

Since whatever Yamato wants, Yamato gets according to Taichi's book – at least for today or until Taichi remembered he had dealings with a true yob – Taichi let Yamato lie on him as they touched each other.

Yamato was absorbed in the sounds his and Taichi's hearts made through the taut muscles which pressed against him and the slick skin which overspread them, softening them for Yamato's delight. He sketched lazy, secret symbols of infinity and number eights all over Taichi with his free hand – the one that wasn't playfully playing with Taichi's spent dick. Yamato trailed the slim path of dark hairs from Taichi's pecks and all the way south to Taichi's belly button. With the pads of his fingers, Yamato went up and down Taichi's thigh. His mouth and everything in it wondered from Taichi's jaw to his ear, down his neck, to his chest, and into his lips for silent, sexy kisses.

Did Taichi always had such freakishly high body temperature or was it the sex? He was like a human furnace. Winter with Taichi would be perfect if Yamato'd get him to have sex with him again. Taichi's hair also smelled fantastic and Yamato burrowed his nose in it.

The gentle fondling gave Taichi gooseflesh. "Yamato?"

A hum of acknowledgement.

"If you'll continue doing this, I'll fuck you again."

"If that was a threat – you failed," but Yamato stopped anyway and lay sprawled over Taichi instead.

"Twat." Taichi gave them a few more minutes of shameless hedonism before asking the one question which remained. "So now what? Like, how do we call 'us'?"

"Whatever. We are what we are to each other. Not everything has to be defined."

"But I want to…" Taichi buried his face in the pillow, taking cover from the shame all this rubbish sentimentality coming out of him brought. He wouldn't go with the conventional stuff, though. 'Boyfriend' didn't describe what they were to each other. It was nowhere near.

"What do you want, Taichi…?"

With a freshly grown grin of an utter loon, Taichi turned back to face Yamato, who seemed like he was straining his mental-abs for the reality which was about to hit him. "Well, seeing as the sex is so good I can't find my left testicle yet, _and_ you probably ruined me for anyone else, _and_ since I've been sporting the urge to murder anyone who got near you in the last two weeks, _and_ since you're my best friend, _and_ since you have gay-formed me, and most importantly – since my dick loves you and I don't even remotely have an interest in doing any of this with someone else …" he gave Yamato a look that spelt anticipation – from all sides and backwards as well.

Heavy blushing ignited Yamato's face. "… It's not like I want to sit on any other cock…"

"Best-friend-boyfriends?"

Instead of consent, Taichi received silence. Did… Did he not make it clear to Yamato how stupidly into him he was? Taichi flipped so he could lie on his stomach and subconsciously searched for parts of Yamato's body beneath the sheets.

"It's not that I don't want to…" Yamato thumped his head back into his pillow. He moved his fringe aside and continued this discussion with the ceiling. "But I don't know if I can be with you. Not like that."

Taichi's eyebrows kinda sank and painted angry 'V's on his face. "What does that mean?"

Yamato closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they looked back at Taichi, serious and as sad as Yamato would ever let on. "I can't take options away from you. I can't bind you. You've seen my dad. What if I end up like him? Or worse, what if I'll hurt you too much and you'll leave? Shit, what if I'll hurt you and you _won't_ leave?"

Taichi slapped his palms on his face and growled. When he removed them, his eyes were shut and he counted up to ten. "Yamato… Do me a fucking favour and don't coddle me. I am a twenty year old man."

"I know..." Clogged, thin voice. The 'I'm sorry' Yamato wanted to express didn't come out of him. He didn't know what to say or how. "I just want to make your life a little bit happier, Taichi…"

"How exactly?" Taichi turned back around, blood-shot red swimming in his brown eyes. "By being a conceited arse? By treating me like I didn't fight an invasions into planet earth? Like I didn't see people get blown into bits in my fucking face? Like I didn't see my friends die? Like _I_ didn't almost die? By telling me what I can and can't do with my life?"

Taichi threw his legs off the bed, pushed himself up, picked up his trousers, threw them back on the floor, and got back into bed, close to Yamato.

"Taichi…"

"Yamato," Taichi cut him off before Yamato'd piss him off any further, and before Taichi could possibly hurt him more than saying what he did already had. He rubbed his face with both hands and left one of them on his right eye, as if 3D objects were too much for him to process right now. "We almost lynched each other once. You won't hurt me now." He slipped his hand right back into Yamato's, rubbing small circles into Yamato's knuckles with his thumb. "You won't..."

"How do you know?"

"Because I won't let you."

Taichi made it sound easy. Yamato almost believed him. "And how would you do that…?" The truth is that Yamato lost to Taichi a long, long time ago, "…fearless leader?" And he was perfectly content with admitting defeat and falling from his grace straight into Taichi's arms. As out of his comfort zone as the whole "boyfriend" business was, it's not like he planned on spending his life with anyone other than Taichi. Besides, it's not like he wouldn't be sorely tempted to sack anyone who touched _his_ Taichi now that Yamato had the full experience.

Taichi propped himself on his shoulder and levelled his intensity with Yamato's. "No one else makes me react like you can. You mean too much for me." He scratched his thigh and flicked off a small mosquito. "It's not like I'm gonna have a bloody happily-ever-after with some tart who's gonna know her tits from brains when she gets to know how shit went tits up for me. There's no one else waiting for me out there. And it's not about how _I_ would do it, but how _we_ would do it. You won't be alone in this. Yeah, some shit will happen, but _we_ will work through it just like _we_ always did. Nothing changed. We've been arguing on and off for years, Yamato, and then made up and learnt to be better for each other. Why the fuck would it change just because I'll be putting my dick in you monogamously? We will work on our problems like all other people who want to be together do. And I want to be with you…" He put his hand fully inside Yamato's palm. He didn't remind him of their promise this time, though – only stroked Yamato's skin, back and forth, not asking for anything. "I want _you_ …" He added, somehow more quiet than before. "Besides, you are not Hiroaki Ishida. You are _Yamato_ Ishida. You may be an anti-social case, but you put your friends above anything else. It's right there on your crest, blud."

The edges of Yamato's mouth formed a shy little smile and he nodded. It was very cute.

"We work, Yamato. So, this is going to work for the same reason it worked yesterday, a month ago, and nine years ago."

"Which is?"

"You're crazy compliments my crazy."

"…"

Taichi flipped on his back again, wrapped Yamato up in a hug and lifted him to Taichi's chest. "You're a great, big silly."

"Shut up…"

"So best friend-boyfriends, Yama?"

"Definitely best-friend-boyfriends." Yamato tightened his hold on Taichi. "I want you too…"

Taichi's spare hand tangled within the yellow threads and he inhaled the delicate aroma of Yamato's hair before burying his entire nose in it. "You need someone to lose control with..."

The same hand drifted between Yamato's legs and closed around his limp member, while Taichi put on a filthy, face-splitting smile. "Plus, I'm gonna keep you very well milked."

But his absolute giddiness was replaced when the fine details Taichi pushed to the back of his mind till now finally needed to be hauled to the limelight. "Wait, things aren't gonna change, right?"

"Not really." Yamato shrugged. "It doesn't really matter _how_ we call our relationship – I have zero will to lose you as my best friend. The shagging part's just a natural extension to what we've always been doing, is the way I see it. _This,"_ Yamato wagged his finger between their respective genitals, _"_ will mostly be the same gig, but with intense, limit-breaking sexual games and wicked-good, bed-damaging banging on the side. Like, we'll still hang out, play video games, and all that jazz – just… starkers."

"I can live with that!"

"Congratulations!" Yamato laughed. "We are officially part of Mother Nature's anti-reproduction vaccine against over-population! The latest product of biological evolution and epigenetics! We continue saving the world and stabilizing humanity's survival odds one butt sex at a time! Good on us."

"Well, we're the Chosen ones for a reason."

Taichi positioned the back of his hand against his forehead dramatically, before moaning like the protagonist of a Greek tragedy. "Oh, but I can already hear the women folk shedding tears in mourn over the passing of my penis' whorish ways."

Yamato pinched him. "Let them burn."

Taichi laughed, hard– as in almost fell off the bed laughing – and made that cheeky, lopsided grin of his happen, the one Yamato couldn't help himself from tracing with his fingers. "There it is…"

"What…?"

"The smile I fell in love with."

"Now who sounds cheesy?" Taichi punched Yamato's arm, but let their 'ooh-huh's die down. "Can I say something and you won't freak out?"

"Try me."

"I can see myself building a home with you."

Yamato's mouth folded into itself. He yanked the pillow from under his head and smashed it on his face, wheezing through the goose feathers.

Taichi poked Yamato's side to make sure he was still alive. "Are you freaking out?'"

Yamato wiggled his hand sideways, making the 'so-so' sign. "Not so much freaking out as simply untrained with these situations."

"I mean," Taichi went on without breaks on his mouth, "I can really see myself making your favourite dish after you had a bad day or getting you to do laundry while I mop the floors." His smile broadened, "and I want you to take care of me when I'm sick, be extra nice to me, pamper me, and be my teddy bear. Then we could get stupidly competitive playing co-op on the PS and go to sleep. Things like that. We'll get old and sane and plain together."

Emerging from his hideout, Yamato threw his pillow at Taichi's smug face. "Not helping!" He sat up and kissed Taichi again – really, really hard. "Don't change…"

"If you won't." Taichi was as happy as the crazed cinnamon bun he truly can be. He very much intended to capitalise on that happiness while it was still possible. Before the next disaster. He turned around and leaned back into Yamato's chest, ass to dick. Taichi snuggled up to Yamato and let Yamato's strong arms wrap him in an embrace. It was hesitant at first, but more balls-y after a minute. Taichi felt very safe and comfortable in Yamato's arms.

There was this odd notion that bonked Yamato's brain and it had something to do with kissing Taichi's brow and pretending it never happened. Taichi was the spitting image of his eleven year old self and that was adorable. Taichi is the most adorable fucker! Yes, yes he is! For reasons of self-worth, however, Yamato refrained. There is only so much fluff he can take before he starts feeling smothered or nauseous. They had sex, they had some more sex, they had aftercare, they did the whole schmutzy-putzy routine. Enough was enough.

"Yamato?"

"Yeah?"

"You mean so fucking much to me."

' _Goddamit, Taichi!'_

Till late afternoon, Yamato let _his man_ invade his body and take him as many times as Taichi wanted to; needed to. They easily went for rounds two and three. It's not like Taichi came each time – even he didn't have that much stamina, but he felt gratified. It was emotionally beneficial.

Here and there Taichi had in his arms a slumbering Yamato.

There was a lot of orgasming and laughing and laughing and orgasming and some _almost_ passing out noises Yamato wouldn't have imagined he'd ever make and which made him start thinking all this "building home" business, with _his man_ , may not be too bad. Yup, _his man_.

When round four was over, Yamato slumped against Taichi's chest and they lay there, with each other, for maybe a naked hour, listening to daylight silence, sort of inappropriately innocent, and complete.

With he soft side of his thumb, Taichi traced the line from Yamato's jaw to his neck, to the junction where his spine met his nape, to his shoulder and back up in reverse.

The gate to the Digital World may close one day, never to be opened again, and there will be no going back to those days, but even then, like this is more than enough.

It's not like they were perfect. Nothing's perfect. And it's perfectly fine. That's how it should be.

The best part about this was not the sex, but being a part of something bigger called life. Somewhere along the line, they were allowed to meet each other, merge, and create an egg from which something new would hatch.

It wasn't some crack-shit fairy-tale of the happily-ever-after variety. It wasn't a story. Yamato didn't want to be a story. He wanted it to be real. Real and unadulterated.

Those precious things they both wanted…

' _Maybe… '_

By the simplest terms, by the most casual procedures and convenient definitions – they just 'were'. They just belonged.

Same as it was when they were children, in a world of their own making they used to call a home, and had a life no one could touch.

Beeswax candles – Beesawax has a very high melting point compared to other types of candles, so it's broiling upon contact with the skin. People who practice BDSM would never normally use them.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Sirens

Piss, sweat, alcohol, vomit, dust, leather, old jizz, fresh jizz, vinyl, latex, metal, fags, boot soles, expired condoms, and any other disagreeable shitter odour that'd get one's mates to go "Aah! That is rank!" wafted through the venue when Yamato entered the neon-illuminated foyer. Everything combined was the best damn smell in the world should you be in the right place. Evoking a deep streak of nostalgia that one does. Yamato was willing to be quoted on it. If by the end of the show, you don't smell like an overused toilet or like a beer that got repurposed as an ashtray, the gig was shite.

He settled Cheri Bomb on her stand and jumped off the stage, heading to the back exist to give Ren a hand with the drum kit.

It connected the live venue to a shoddy back alley that was exactly like any other piss-poor corner in this poisonous metropolis. Exposed utility pipes were flaking, oxidised orange with rust. Random spots reeked of piss. The kings and queens of the streets were all here, in their miniature clothing, selling flesh and the parody of love, trying to look like they weren't trying at all.

Some people were born lucky. Some people were lucky to be born. These sperm burping princes and queefing princesses belonged to neither group.

A few metres behind the band's van, Yamato already spotted all the kerb-crawlers queuing in the alley in all their rotten glory. One "gent" wearing one 'dem fancy Burberry trench coats, shoved his stinking paw right down the trousers of the youngest male prostitute he found to cup a feel of his junk. The effigy of the derision of those who live on the upper side. That boy couldn't have been older than Takeru and already his face looked like his life choices – a train wreck. His solicitor didn't give a fuck about sanitation either, so the whore was bent over the rubbish bin and _hop_ – in went the old, wrinkly dick.

Was that boy new? Yamato hadn't seen him around.

No one gave them much of a second glance and Yamato reckoned he shouldn't either. He can feign empathy all he wants, but what good would that do to anyone? Everyone just wants to jump into the fray and lose themselves in the chaos of the self-indulgent lotus-eater.

The van's back door almost hit his stupid face when Dasha kicked it open, carrying two amplifiers and her Les Paul.

"Oi! Watch it, you bellend!" He barked after her. Not that it helped anyone or would ever come in handy for future use.

He swung his head before any other blunt object hit it, and a familiar face surfaced from the crowd of rent-boys; this wasn't the first time KoD performed here.

Yamato shoved his head into the van, where Ren was coiling the cables around his forearm. "You need me now, mate?"

"Five minutes or so."

"I'm out for a smoke, yeah?"

Ren raised his thumb and Yamato turned around, taking out a joint and his lighter before walking over to Luca.

With his back against the bare wall of cement blocks, the call-boy was well within his work uniform: jeans as tight as an arterial tourniquet with strategic holes around his crotch and a cropped muscle top which advertised to his clients some pretty decent abs. He was doable, Yamato would give him that. Looks like he highlighted his hair blonde as well since the last time Yamato saw him.

"Care for a toke?"

"Cheers, bruvva. You're a saint, that's what you are."

Yamato put the stick between Luca's lips and lit it up for him. After a few puffs settled in his lungs, Luca passed it back to Yamato and listened to him sucking it. They rolled it from one to the other like this without talking too much – just the way Yamato liked it. Since he was already here, though, he may as well use the opportunity, he figured.

"Know any private spot 'round here for good knob-gobbling?"

Luca gave Yamato the once over and flicked his thumb against the joint. "I'll suck your dick any time, right here, Ishida."

"Much appreciated, but I meant it literally. I got plans."

"What plans?"

"My plans are _my_ plans."

One last drag and Luca threw the burnt crutch to the pavement and stomped out the remains. "You come out 'round ten minutes after your number and I reckon we'll be pretty busy. Should be empty here, you get me?"

"Cheers, mate. Hope no fat, greasy prick with two mites and a wife creeps up your arse today." Yamato picked up the bud and threw it to the bin. To Luca's friendly "sod off!", Yamato flipped him off and got back just in time to help Ren with the pedals.

So how did Yamato come to be on a first-name basis with a hooker? Simply put, he did over some fugly punter who didn't understand Luca had the right to refuse service.

Truth is, if you know one, you know them all. They all had the same stories. Boys who were not as lucky as Yamato were thrown out of their houses and made a living by selling a gay boy's most valuable asset: their backsides.

Most of them lived in groups over the clubs that lined the pavements here and came down to the street to sell. Or buy drugs.

On his last round to the van, Yamato got it. He got why he was guaranteed privacy after his concert. The prostitutes here started a trend which was picking up momentum: they dyed their hairs blonde, put in blue contacts, dressed tight, and stood near Knife of Day posters. Yamato reckoned he should go back inside; before the clients confused him with a renter and tried shoving money down his boxers so he'd let them screw him.

That was certainly an interesting way to be complimented.

"… **the window is bursting with sunrise.**

 **I stand at the edge of the door.**

 **I thought I caught the scent of freedom**

 **And now I am drunk on the floor."**

Rock n' roll nights, drunken flights, friends' fights and neon lights. What a ledge!

Under the credence of the of waves which carried music through bolstered distortion, pounding drums, screaming guitars, shrieking keyboards, and his very own loyal Cheri Bomb, Yamato was God. His lyrics were the sermon, his notes were the creed, the stage was his alter, and the teeming of the audience was his chant.

Taichi's cuts from last night had begun healing and constricted his skin, so Yamato scraped off the bunching gore and reopened the slashes. For the last two hours, all the salt from the sweat soaking his tank top rubbed off on them and _fuck_ , was that a mad adrenalin rush!

For Taichi in the front row, Yamato was sex on a plate and everything he wore screamed "Fuck me!"

Earlier that night, Yamato had a biker jacket on. It got tossed away mighty fast, leaving him in a cut-up wife-beater he used to wipe his sweat with and skin-tight, ripped jeans which left an indecent hole under the right cheek of his bum. It flashed the audience with an overly benevolent patch of pink that sported all the purple blotches Taichi left on him. Yamato's ragged, sweaty fringe flew over his eyes. His skin shimmered with sweat whereas his eyes shimmered with iron conviction. His voice was the hymn of a siren, compelling his audience to crush at his feet.

That explained the mosh-pit going on in the middle of the venue and the one crowd-surfer the security-people were failing to fish out.

Yamato was born to do this. He was a blistering cyclone, bathing in the stage lights. It was like staring into the sun. Taichi could go blind.

The band played loud and the band played true. Played for the world to hear. A reason for Yamato's heart to go on beating.

From the side of his eye, Taichi caught a glimpse of Jun Motomya with her boyfriend. No longer a fan with a super-sonic shriek, but a mature woman who came over to enjoy herself with some good time and better music. _'Nope, not boyfriend,'_ Taichi's memories jogged up when the gold band on her fourth finger popped into his view. 

"Do you want more?!" Yamato yelled from above his throne of luminosity.

The crowd was a universe of "YES!", raucous robbing them of reason.

"Next one is: Fresh Eyes." Yamato growled the titular phrase, milking the inhabitants for their vocal cords.

" **I have a dirty mouth – I do amazing things with it.**

 **I have a dirty mind – it's getting more so when I'm getting lit.**

 **I have a dirty life –I'm being thrashed from street to street.**

 **I have so many eyes – new ones blossom every day.**

 **I rub off the world and can feel myself coming.**

 **I take my pleasure from living and pride in my death**

 **I'll open your sockets for your dirty breath.**

 **Fresh eyes!..."**

Taichi banged his head to the furious beat which rocked him down to his pellicles while wiping sweat off with the same hand the venue stamped him on.

Somewhere along the line, the "swarm" – as Yamato referred to his army of listeners – squashed Takeru into his underarm.

Shoving two refrigerator-shaped men out of his way, Taichi pulled Takeru to the front of the stage till the teen could lean his elbows between two speakers, saving him from being mauled to death.

" **I am the sun – look how pretty I'm shining.**

 **I am the moon – I'm a rock that keeps spiralling.**

 **I am a black hole – I am collapsing.**

 **I have so many eyes – we are a singular entity.**

 **The world revolves by revolution.**

 **Reality is fixed,**

 **But you can always change your mind…"**

With Taichi protecting him with his body, Takeru felt very comfortable and very, very clever yelling over the masses, "so, Taichi, how's the new blonde?!" He didn't miss the uncontrollable, face-slicing tooth-show Taichi had on when he yelled back, "the freakiest little sex puppet I ever met!"

'Cause, really, Yamato was a walking, talking, wet dream on display. All that sleek skin reminded Taichi he'd make Yamato look exactly like that again later. Just as flushed and just as wet when he'd get Yamato under him in half an hour or so. Taichi couldn't wait to go backstage and fuck Yamato silly.

The heat pooling down his loins almost leaked out. The memory of Yamato's burning skin against Taichi's, and knowing what it's like to claim the rosebuds which formed Yamato's lips with his own, was Taichi's analgesic. One hit – and he was in a better place. Was Taichi over-romanticizing? Fuck yeah, like a right muppet he was. Would he share his inner allegories for parts of Yamato's anatomy with Yamato? Fuck no.

" **My functions are limitless,**

 **My series don't converge,**

 **Maybe,**

 **I'm trying to feel all the holes in my head.**

 **I've divided by zero – now everyone's dead."**

The song ended with a fading chord and the drumsticks hitting the cymbal with a light touch.

It was always a weirder one for Taichi. Yamato said it was some sort of a mathematical joke. That was so much like Yamato. He always marched to his own tune and rocked with his own solo – often literally.

Romantic Love songs weren't a part of his repertoire since middle-school, no matter how good those sold with teeny-boppers and scene queens. Every second song on the radio was about romancing someone, bonking someone, or trying to romance someone so you could bonk them afterwards. The topic'd been chewed over into a cliché. It was a peg-legged whore Yamato felt bad about cheapening further.

Yamato wasn't here for the pay. He was here to say his honest-to-fuck words and deliver clear messages. He'd say that all music, all songs, are a world in their own right. Moments frozen in time and encapsulated in formaldehyde, preserved like a crystal ball. They were lullabies to put children to sleep with. They were love letters kept in a secret drawer, biding their time till they'd burst with emotions and could be withheld no longer. They were odes to glory and virtue. They spanned every form of conflict, from riots to full-fledged wars. They spanned stories. They were suicide notes. Some were a request for help while others tried to connect with them in offers of support.

That was one of the things Taichi loved most about the blighter. Taichi wagered most people fell under the 'Pleaser' sub-type as far as their role in the food-chain was concerned. Some were nice. Some had their mouth so deep up someone's arse, the flavour of shit would never wash off. That didn't make them bad or anything, but caring for everyone meant they cared for no one and that's just cruel.

Taichi's no hypocrite. It was very easy for him to gain people's smiles – but there was this something about _earning_ someone's feelings that he wanted. It's an ego stroke. You get to feel worthy. That's half the reason Taichi always wanted Yamato to be his friend. That's also why he knew now there wasn't going to be anyone else who could give Taichi what he needed. And also what he wanted. Yamato was the real thing. Skimp with affections he won't give away easily – when Yamato did let them come, being on their receiving end was like high-fiving napalm and surviving to tell the story to your mates at the pub. Being friends with Yamato was like beating an unachievable goal or being blown by a force of nature.

And right now, on stage, Yamato was going to blow Taichi's balls away. Figuratively and, hopefully, literally afterwards.

As per any rock concert tradition, Knife of Day evacuated the stage and waited for the "encore!" chants to summon them back up.

"Alright, rioters, Knife of Day has a special treat for you. This one's called 'For You'. It's a toast: for the nights we won't remember with the friends we won't forget."

He started the overture with his bass line, altering between notes using a repetitive motif. For that one person who waited for him, somewhere out there, Yamato would pour everything that he was into the sea of roaring people he couldn't see and the few who cared.

" **Everything…**

 **You and I'd done anything.**

 **All of heaven's stars were ripped**

 **Like flesh fruit from Eden's tree.**

 **Far away…**

 **The ceaseless thoughts always return to that day,**

 **When we lay down and stared like warriors, on blood–drenched battlefields.**

 **Please forget about the world and lingering on yesterdays.**

 **Why dwell on the past when we can own today?…"**

A short instrumental segment composed of intermittent pauses made way to reciting:

" **All we have is immaterial,**

 **The secrets of the fading gardens aren't ours anymore.**

 **If I could,** **the two of us would be** **chasing kites.**

 **Like we used to.**

 **Falling, like the children do**

 **And me,**

 **a part of me and you..."**

The gentle thrum returned and evolved into a full blown beat which resonated with clarity when Yamato sang the chorus, hormones in his voice:

" **So why won't you come by?**

 **Step unto my seal?**

 **And I will let you in,**

 **And you will lie down,**

 **And I will give you wine,**

 **The cheapest brand I find.**

 **Show you all my scars,**

 **And you will fuck me hard,**

 **And cater to my greed,**

 **My every whim and need,**

 **A Stone Age kind of creed,**

 **The lust I must forfeit,**

 **when I am on my knees,**

 **To kiss your lovely crown**

 **My one and only king.**

 **When my heart stops beating**

 **I want your everything.**

 **Chains…**

 **On my tongue taste like the iron in blood.**

 **Mute because three words can't contain me.**

 **Can't contain us. Only you, you are, to me, an endless galaxy**

 **Of sub-atomic particles – ever changing, ever shining.**

 **All the noises in our knotted capillaries breed harmony.**

 **In a world where tidal waves can rise from ripples,**

 **Let me show you why storms are named after people.**

 **And me, becoming impossible…**

 **And if you fall again I want to go with you,**

 **And if I'll get lost, I'll still find you.**

 **And even if the world ends, I'll let it end as it began**

 **Until the very end of what is you and me,**

 **until there is no end.**

 **And even after everything,**

 **Nothing else matters, nothing else means anything.**

 **And between the missing piece, found you here.**

 **We cried liked crazy together,**

 **And you,**

 **Are a part of you and me.**

" **So when will you come by?**

 **And step unto my seal?**

 **So I will let you in,**

 **Letting you lie down,**

 **I will give you wine,**

 **The cheapest brand I find.**

 **And you will tell your story,**

 **And touch my naked bones**

 **As I bear to you my veins,**

 **Crawl out of my skin,**

 **Expose my heart and ribs**

 **The universe in me –**

 **Its stars and constellations**

 **So you will map my ins'.**

 **When our hearts stop beating**

 **I'll be your everything…"**

The music echoed through Taichi's skin. This was rapture.

" **So what if we let go?**

 **And what if we race past the lights, no hands on the wheel?**

 **So what if we'll become waves?**

 **And what if we rise and crush with no one waiting by the shore?**

 **So what if we go?**

 **And what if we were never found?**

 **Let's get lost.**

 **Let's never be found…"**

There was a moment of silence when Yamato picked up his harmonica and let its song be the only one. For one whole minute, the sound of the harmonica was the world's heart-beat.

" **Please… now, before we turn too old,**

 **Come find me.**

 **Carve your existence into my being.**

 **You are afraid**

 **Like I am afraid.**

 **Tie your fingers with mine, so that I won't run away. Not anymore.**

 **Please… why won't you lie beside me,**

 **In a Kingdom by the sun,**

 **On old grass,**

 **Under mad sky**

 **And the smell of us,**

 **And stop the gushing future before it drowns us both… please,**

 **Just for a little while?**

 **Eternity is only contained in fractures of moments fleeting,**

 **Then our hearts stop beating,**

 **Until we're a puzzle piece in the earthly green**

 **This alone can make me human.**

 **You alone can make me seen…"**

The sounds were all discordant and playing to their own beats, but the melody was real and riddled with compassion. A song to go on living. All those things tumbled out of Yamato – and Taichi knew they were given something special. He knew it since they were Chosen.

It was funny how all those things Yamato said and all those things Yamato didn't say were so meaningless compared to what he let Taichi see. And it was beautiful, just like Yamato himself and just as Taichi wanted Yamato to see him.

" **And if… if it were given**

 **I would sacrifice everything and trade off my life.**

 **To see only once again your smile,**

 **And know you are alive."**

The last echoes of Yamato's voice reverberated through the venue.

A single reprieve for silence permeated the space before the roof almost went off with the volcanic force of rock fans that erupted inside the building.

Yamato left them with his final words and their seething, raving selves when the Knives went off-stage – not taking the piss this time. He'd never stop loving the exhilaration of going off stage after an amazing gig. It was a reason to live forever. Pure ataraxia. Second only to having Taichi, this was how euphoria got its name.

Their absence was filled with the Dropkick Murphys.

When Yamato entered the back room, a space decorated with Metal paraphernalia and one 'Nevermind the Bollocks' vinyl hammered to the wall, he loaded the hands of his mates with fresh Fireball pints.

They toasted a rock-well-rolled and listened to Zero belch the alphabet in gratitude. One could say he and Yamato had a love-hate relationship. Barring playing together, the entire pillar of their connection was based on loving to hate the same things.

Then Yamato cued them in about the recent development in his sex life.

Taichi ran behind the scenes like it was going to be the last thing he'd do in is life. He's gonna pin Yamato to the nearest surface the moment he finds him and fuck him and fuck him and fuck him all good n' proper till Yamato was fucked.

He got impatient waiting for the crowd to dwindle and had to have Dasha confirm to the bouncers he wasn't a murder-rapist who was out to use Yamato's face as a decorative piece over his fireplace.

So when Taichi saw Yamato – with Yamato's hair being more of an anarchist than Yamato himself and falling flaxen over his forehead in that sexy, wet way it did – Taichi got milimetres from his face and, "You _love_ me," he said, out of breath.

Yamato blinked once. Then twice, dumbfounded. Or just dumb. Did he somehow fail to make it clear to Taichi how much he loved him during the last nine years? "You're an idiot."

"I love _you_. I gotta be."

"And crazy."

"And crazy," Taichi confirmed.

"…I love you," Yamato whispered.

"I know."

In the dunk room, illuminated red by two lamps built in the floor, Yamato and Taichi were hugging. Rubbing feet and their warm cheeks together, inhaling sweat and aftershave. Their hands found comfortable and familiar places to stay in and that's what they did.

Yamato didn't mind his arms under Taichi's armpits. It's not like there can possibly be any more sweat on him. His fingers weaved through Taichi's hair, which was limp from the humidity in the club, and kissed one of Taichi's dimples, lips skimming soft skin. Then Yamato buried his face in Taichi's neck and made Taichi tighten his hold on him. Taichi stroked up and down Yamato's upper back.

"I don't reckon I ever had a song before," Taichi said, muffled by the blonde hair in his mouth.

"I wrote tons of songs about you," and before the much anticipated query had a chance to leave Taichi's ultra-curious hatch, "and I'm not gonna tell you which ones they are. But I'm glad you enjoyed the gig."

"Bloody hell, mate!" Taichi wailed, "Kurt Cobain is rolling in his grave to hide the massive hard on you just gave him! People were shitting themselves into a Golgotha."

Taichi moved his head back a bit, just in time to see Yamato's eyes glisten with a wet sheen. Yamato blinked harshly, trying to stump the flow, and tossed hair out of his eyes.

The motion sent a whiff of sweat and Yamato's herbal shampoo up Taichi's nostrils. In a moment, Taichi was up against Yamato's body, pinning him to the wall, and picking him straight up with Taichi's hands cupping Yamato's perfect arse. His finger slipped up Yamato's shirt and tugged at his piercing.

Yamato clung to Taichi with both his arms and legs, letting Taichi carry him around. Yamato's hands dropped under the waistline of Taichi's jeans, kneading Taichi's plump tushy to goad him on.

"How will this affect your reputation…? Isn't image everything in the business…?" Taichi asked in between the instances he used to catch Yamato's mouth with deliberate kisses.

"Reputations are meant to be tarnished."Taichi's lips were hot and salty with sweat, making them fun for Yamato to suck onwhile he plundered their goods. "It's not like I intended to do this all my life, anyway."

Taichi dropped Yamato on the table and ground into his crotch. Memories of Yamato's bare arse, sprayed with so much of Taichi's cum, from multiple fucks, flashed before Taichi's eyes.

"Fuck, Yama, I'm so hard for you it fucking hurts." His voice dropped to that deep, husky tone, knowing what it did to Yamato, as Taichi rubbed circles into the small of Yamato's back.

"Oh? And what do you think may help?"

Not a question – a very well-executed tease, performed with an octave as seductive as Yamato could put out there while giving Taichi's waist a gentle squeeze.

Taichi delivered a sharp slap to Yamato's bum before cupping it again. "I can stick it in here. I'll fill you up with my load in a minute."

He shifted their balance so he could free one hand and slide it up Yamato's shirt to pet his flat tummy, feeling the way it dipped behind Yamato's hipbones. Taichi's mouth moved from nipping at the sensitivity of Yamato's ears to kissing him roughly again, missing Yamato's mouth half the time, and forming the barely teetering on the edge of intelligible: "let me in you…

"You always are." Yamato latched himself onto Taichi's Adam's apple before kissing down the line of Taichi's oesophagus to the collar of his deodorant-infused, soaked shirt.

Neither Taichi nor Yamato were the traditionally romantic type. No bouquet of flowers for Yamato. Which was good since Yamato wouldn't have any idea how to deal with that. Maybe, in time, when they'd get more comfortable in their commitment, they'd acquire some planted cacti and call them Togemon-Jimmy, Togemon-Robert , Togemon-John and Togemon-John Poul. Till then, they were more the pelvis-breaking, hard sex on a running washing machine type of boyfriends. They were going to keep it practical, as well. For now, academics had to come first, as well as work. They planned on getting the whole adult-ing stuff right.

This was not some magical, deterministic relationship where they were "meant for each other" or any some such rubbish. They weren't. It just happened. The fact that Yamato's lucky stars happened to align themselves was about love, luck and friendship – not fate.

Taichi stopped. He pulled Yamato to his body without saying anything and held him, radiating warmth and lust beneath the layers of his tissues. Taichi cupped Yamato's jaw with both hands. His fingers travelled, archiving the sensation of Yamato's neck in their sensory memory.

Yamato closed his eyes and waited until Taichi was content with what he wanted to feel.

"I have an after-party in mind," he said when Taichi paused, and fixed Taichi with a look. A look Taichi couldn't read but knew he should follow. Like a command. If Taichi hadn't already had one, it would have given him an instant hard-on. Yamato had it bad. Soon, he'd be on his knees, begging Taichi.

"Mmmm?"

"I want to suck you off in the alley."

"What? Why?"

Yamato's forehead creased, but relaxed just as fast. What's the point? If Taichi didn't think about it, Yamato didn't want to bring it up. "I'm weak – a slave to the throes of passion. I also love being taken advantage of. I will accept no retaliation from you on the matter."

Taichi grunted and bounced on his toes. "You're making this really hard." – He talked about refusing the mighty generous offer.

"It can't be helped, Taichi." Yamato grabbed Taichi's junk and stroked up and down the zip. "I can't control your boner. Only encourage it."

And there it was, Taichi's last, clear thought: _'fuck it.'_

'No' became a dirty word. Saucy, lusty Yamato was nice. Saucy, lusty Yamato was very nice. Very, very nice. And having him in a wide-open space, getting all risky and dangerous was even better.

"I planned on fucking you senseless till tomorrow evening, but I guess my schedule is flexible, my one-noted flute maestro."

Yamato buried his hand inside the wild strands which were much silkier to the touch than the bush they were associated with. Resting against Taichi's chest was Yamato's free hand and he ran it along the sexy plains of Taichi's body.

"I love you."

"I love me too."

"Dick."

"Be patient. You'll get it soon."

"I'll get a taxi and go home _alone_ , is what I'll get."

"I love you too, Yamato."

Takeru weaved his way past the river of frothing rock fans and tried avoiding being crashed during his quest to the back stage.

When he got there, it was just in time to see the lads from Knife of Day, sans his brother, moving amps and gear to the van. He said his 'hi's and 'hello's, but before he grabbed the knob poking from the backroom's door, Ren one-upped him and smiled with his one missing tooth. "Don't wanna go in there, mate. Your brother's with his bum chums now and I reckon it's gonna start smelling like arse in there pretty soon."

Takeru backed away, smiling wide.

Yamato started getting used to the boyfriend terminology, even if it was weird at first. And to be treated like Taichi's bitch in the bedroom here and there. What he wasn't able to get used to were these new, possessive urges he had. He left a _huge_ hickey on Taichi before they left the house and even from the stage, he kept his eye on anyone going anywhere near his Taichi. HIS Taichi. HIS. Taichi was _his_ man. Barring the sex though, nothing changed all that much otherwise.

Taichi got used to having a hot blonde with perfect, _perfect_ lips semi-permanently attached to his cock rather fast. Yamato made him feel very complete. Their newfound way to interact also gave Taichi a brave new world to run unrestrained in. Explore sex with someone he was entirely himself with and who wanted what he wanted. Their world of freedom, unquestioned trust, and vast understating has now opened for them venues of new sensations and they raced to educate themselves with their bodies.

After the last two days, Taichi was more familiar with himself than he had ever been prior. There was harmony inside his body. Every aspect of himself was a transparent sheet to him and he was visible to himself in his entirety. Touches resonated, hitting every single nerve throughout his grid till they exploded in his brain. Yamato opened him completely.

Yamato loved the process of studying the art of 'Taichi'. Learning what Taichi loved. Learning the many different shades, strokes, and sounds Taichi made every time Yamato trifled with doing something new to Taichi's body. Along with those, not once did Yamato abandon the "old" stuff which made Taichi whine. Taichi loved having a felattio performed on him – that was a given – and Yamato loved performing it on him. For Pete's sake, Taichi's cock made Yamato's mouth water! Really, what was it in his brain that made him look at Taichi and go "I want to put this in my mouth"?

He learnt Taichi had a particular, sensitive spot in the middle of his back where he was ticklish in and it made him do funny noises. He learnt Taichi liked sleeping on his chest after sex and have Yamato cradle his head. It reminded Taichi how Yamato came to him during the battle with Piedmon. It always held a significant weight in him. And, apparently, Yamato's heart had a good sound. Taichi said he could hear it well through Yamato's thin chest.

But what Taichi loved most was being kissed. On his lips, on his cheeks, on his ears, on his brow, on his eyebrows, on his nose – _especially_ on his nose – on his neck, on his nape, on his collarbone, on his shoulders, on his chest, on his arms, on his forearms, on his wrists, on each finger, on his abs, in his navel, on his knees, on his ankles – and even on his large toe! On his thighs, his inner thighs, between his thighs, where a mouth wouldn't normally go: on the small hole of his arse – which made Taichi squirm and fidget and sweat and not believe it just happened – and on his cock. Dutifully, Yamato tried kissing all these spots. For Taichi, the sex was great, but kisses blew his head off. The only place Yamato couldn't kiss Taichi on was the top of his head. It was like trying to dive into a lion.

With Taichi pinned to the wall, Yamato dropped to his knees. When he went down, the cuts on his back tore against the stretch, again, and sent tiny stings up his back.

Luca got it right. The alley was dead and only the draped windows above it suggested there was life in this monument for dead-ends.

From Yamato's attractive vantage point, Taichi's _huge_ package was all over the place and right in Yamato's face, aching under those teeny-weeny tight jeans. How did Taichi even get into those with this _thing_?!

Yamato looped his fingers around Taichi's belt, unfastening it with light-speed ease and ripping open his trousers.

' _Shit, he's horny.'_ But Taichi loved watching Yamato exposing Taichi's body to him. It was very sexy; Yamato looked so happy, especially since he always had that expression about him when he did it – the expression of a child unwrapping a Christmas present after waiting for it all year long. Or nine years.

Yamato started by sniffing Taichi's knees. He developed a fetish for them fast enough. They always had a cute umami aroma. Yamato loved Taichi's legs as a whole, actually. Years of football did a bloody marvel on them, making them all muscular and firm all the way up to Taichi's teeth-sinking-worthy inner thighs.

Taichi sighed in relief at the sensation of his zip being pulled down. He let his trousers sail to the ground, treating Yamato with a stiff bulge that was already wet and leaking.

Yamato's mouth curved in a big, wide, toothy way; he was a puppy getting his bone. He began rubbing Taichi through the tight boxers, his thumb prodding Taichi's sensitive tip. It got those cute "ooo…" moans to come out of Taichi.

Creating that small pool of pre-cum in Taichi's undies so proficiently had made Yamato ecstatic. Very proud of himself. He didn't know if Taichi was this eager around girls, but he didn't feel like discovering either.

One sassy glance up and Yamato was putting his mouth, wide open, on the heavy throbbing hiding underneath the briefs. He frenched Taichi's trapped dick, sucked the frame of his cock, kissed, and licked. The piercing on Yamato's tongue grazed the flesh through the cotton and strummed the folds near the top – the ones where Taichi was particularly sensitive at.

Yamato was such a tease, the vision of decadence and immorality, and he was making Taichi _look_. Taichi's underwear was getting wet with Yamato's saliva. Small droplets got on Yamato's cheek and Yamato was just so sexy and he really wanted Taichi and just having Yamato worship him like this was so nice and sweet and-

When a warm hand closed around his dick, Taichi hummed with that familiar bliss building around in his belly. Sweat poured down his forehead and his hair clung to it, matted.

When Yamato couldn't keep it in either, he peeled Taichi's boxers off and those devil magic genitals of Taichi's sprang to attention. Yamato got all hands-y with it instantly. When Taichi's massive meat jerked in his fist, Yamato began pumping it good and hard, up and down, up and down. He was so desperate to feel Taichi; desperate to give Taichi what he wanted.

A pearly tear fell off the slit and Yamato lapped it off, flicking his tongue in cute, small and quick motions, letting Taichi enjoy his perky "Kitten".

Yamato gave a small suckle to the tip and marvelled at it. "You know, I have never seen a more compelling argument supporting the existence of a god than your dick. And if its gender and sex aren't as ambiguous as western scriptures imply, then you can be damn sure it's either one horny lady or a very, very gay mister."

Taichi contemplated. "How much gay is very, very gay?"

Yamato, who was back to sucking on the lollipop, gave Taichi a look of are-we-seriously-having-this-debate-now-with-your-cock-in-my-mouth-?.

"I just figured," Taichi defended himself with way too many hand motions, "if you like pushing penises into your throat and taking it up the arse, it's pretty much as gay as it gets."

Filling up his mouth with the heavy shaft, Yamato smiled around it and rolled his eyes, hoping Taichi would shut his mouth. Maintaining conversation while sucking dick was past the limits of his multi-tasking skills.

It worked stupendously. Taichi was panting and hissing and cursing and having mixed feelings about the existence of Yamato's mouth, that he hated and admired, and he knew he wasn't going to last long. Not when Yamato was servicing him. Yamato had the pinkest, _tightest_ lips Taichi's cock had ever fucked.

Between a moan, some damn dirty pants, and watching Yamato's white throat bouncing around him, Taichi tried dirty talking. Dirty-talk was such a turn on for Yamato. "You like it when I fuck your mouth, don't you, kitten?"

It earned Taichi a deep, hard suction and he hissed, running his hands through of Yamato's hair. "You are so good to me, Yamato… so, _so_ good to me…"

Yamato pulled out to rest his mouth, clenching his lips into a tiny ring on the way up, and said, "You deserve to have good things happen to your penis, Taichi," and after a few more pumps of his wrist, he swallowed Taichi's shaft back up.

Yamato had cock-sucking down to an art. He didn't give blow-jobs, he gave one-man blow- _nados_! It became nigh impossible for Taichi _not_ to rock his hips against Yamato's face.

Yamato bloody excelled at pushing back against Taichi's thrusts, though. He got Taichi groaning like a beast and blowing his load inside Yamato's mouth. Yamato also made sure Taichi was staring at him when the sperm dribbled down Yamato's throat and he swallowed each drop of cum like an expert. The few beads coating his lips after Taichi's massive explosion inside him were licked away, slowly and hungrily. That way, Yamato made sure he kept every bit of Taichi's nectars.

He was an addict now, and he couldn't exist in a world where Taichi wasn't filling his holes. When Yamato was sure Taichi was done, he pulled him from his mouth, and tucked Taichi safely back in his trunks.

Their tryst left a few wiry pubes between Yamato's teeth which he discreetly collected and spat out.

"Oi, Yamato, you want me to shave?"

"Nah, it's all right." Yamato ran his hand through Taichi's dunk bush. "I love the smell."

"I fink you're freaky and I like you a lot, Yamato Ishida."

"Oh wow, you came so hard you're quoting Die Antwood?"

"I came so hard you missed a spot." Taichi pulled Yamato up by his arms. That renegade viscid drop drizzled past Yamato's lips, down his chin, and was about to drop on his hand. Taichi leaned in to lick the evasive bulb, and lingered there so he could trace Yamato's lower lip with his tongue. "I think my legs went numb. Why the _fuck_ are you so good at this…?"

Yamato hummed against the hot mouth which was all over his. "You may be surprised, but this," he pointed to the lower half of his face "-is Harmonica. Anyone who plays will tell you the harp is all about blowing and sucking."

"Bloody hell, blud. You really are built for pleasure." Taichi gawked at Yamato with a mix of awe and honest admiration for another man's skills. "Well, my pleasure," he added when Yamato went red for reasons which precluded the intense workout his oral muscles had been subjected to.

"Fuck off, Taichi."

Ducking a punch, Taichi span Yamato around and encircled him in his arms. He docked his forehead between Yamato's shoulder-blades and sniffed. The wet patches of his T-shirt all oozed concentrated endorphins.

When Yamato stopped trying to fight him off, Taichi asked, "Can I stay over tonight? And sleep in your bed…?"

Large and rough hands covered Taichi's and ran soft circles against his knuckles.

"What kind of a stupid question is that?"

Taichi squeezed Yamato harder and Yamato pinched his arm. "We just need to drop everyone off. Ren is too drunk to drive and Dasha and Zero have no license."

Taichi shotgunned. It was pretty awesome – sitting in a van with a rock band in the back, the altering views of the city chasing each other down in quick succession. He was there one moment and then he wasn't. Orange streetlights stretched into bright stripes and the wind of the road sieved through the open window.

Dasha was the last to be dropped off, somewhere at the edge of the town. Once she faded into the industrial view, Yamato and Taichi made a U-turn and headed back.

The drive seemed to go on forever. Could have been the hour. 2 AM makes a person lethargic.

Yamato placed his arm over Taichi's shoulders, smoothing his thumb up and down Taichi's neck before playing with his ear a bit. At the next red light, Yamato's hand dropped to the base of Taichi's head and Yamato smiled at Taichi who innocently smiled back.

"Suck me off, Taichi."

"Are you bloody joking?"

"What do you think?"

"Sure you can drive?"

"Are you daft or something? Yes I can drive. Suck me off."

Taichi shrugged his shoulders. Next thing he knew, his hands dived for Yamato's crotch and were undoing the belt, button, and zip. One look, and it was clear just how much Yamato wanted this. This was great for Taichi. There was always that side in him that wanted to please Yamato.

He readjusted the seat belt, lowered his head to Yamato's lap and took out Yamato's dick from the boxers. The mushroom head was already shiny, dripping a bit from the top. Taichi masturbated it a bit first, watching it leap in anticipation. Seeing that would never fail to make him happy. Taichi put it in his mouth and got even happier with Yamato's heavy groan in Taichi's ear.

He'd give Yamato head any time that yob asked, simply because Yamato wanted one. It's not that Taichi developed an oral fixation or somethin' outta nowhere. He still thought dicks were kinda gross, but he wanted to practice and get better. Yamato _deserved_ this.

The heavy meat filled out Taichi's cheeks, salty with sweat and the tender juices it emitted. It was opening his throat and Taichi relaxed his muscles to fit it in him as he went up and down, tightening his lips around the tip. That was what Yamato loved best.

The hand which wasn't working the shaft excavated deeper down Yamato's briefs and fondled his balls. Yamato grunted, communicating his incoherent appreciation. Warm fingers tugged at Yamato's Guiche and Yamato whimpered while Taichi smiled around his knob. Totally Taichi's favourite new toy.

When the blow job got intense, Yamato dug the hand which wasn't steering the wheel into Taichi's hair. It was thick and provided a good contrast.

"Taichi…!"

That's the signal – Taichi freed Yamato's shaft from his mouth with the smack of his lips, just in time to collect Yamato's cum between his fingers. He glanced up at Yamato with a small, sweet smile – as if he expected to be praised.

Yamato smiled back, licked Taichi's hand, and wiped off the remains with a piece of paper towel that's been jammed behind the gear stick.

"Thank you, baby."

Taichi's smile turned embarrassed at the nickname, but in a shy, cute way. When he got his face back, he noticed that wherever Yamato took them – it was _not_ Odaiba. No lights, no hum of the city's bustle, no hungover salaryman slurring into their phones. Not even the Rainbow Bridge. Great view of the stars though. Lupus and Ursa Minor were brilliant, and not only because that was their star-job or something.

Rough fingertips got snugged under Taichi's ear and mad goose-pimples flourished across his nape. Yamato hit an erogenous zone of his.

When Taichi turned back to him, Yamato's eyeballs were already half-way under his lids. Taichi's blood started pumping hard enough for it to echo in his inner ear.

Yamato grabbed the back of Taichi's head to mould them more properly into each other's mouths. It was a hard thing – as if Yamato was a starved animal who had all its instincts kick in at the same time. Taichi loved it when Yamato kissed him like this: open mouthed kisses – no tongues. Completely amazing in its own right.

Given a few minutes, fierce snogging was afoot. Somewhere in the middle of it, Taichi's body was lowered down. Yamato pressed on Taichi's arms until Taichi's head was lying on the back of the seat. After getting him where he wanted, Yamato moved the tendrils of Taichi's hair to expose his bronze throat to him and bit Taichi's neck.

He calmed down a bit and took a break to tell Taichi, "It's a rock-star's tradition to fuck groupies in the band's van, Taichi," and to give him a vicious smile. Taichi couldn't believe how hard Yamato wanted to fuck his brains out. "I'm going to fuck you, babe. I'm going to take away your anal virginity."

So, basically, Yamato took Taichi to the other side of nowhere to have his wicked way with Taichi. It was such a cliché, but Taichi was more of a sucker for tropes than he'd ever admit. He felt sexy and wanted and desirable – like someone who could actually look good standing next to Yamato. No turn-on was sweeter than this.

The fact that, at any moment, anyone could see them – see Taichi getting fucked with a big cock shoved into his arse over and over – made the sex even better. Being desired like this by Yamato wasn't bad at all. Taichi realised he liked this type of attention. He also realised he'd been waiting to hand his control over to someone else and openly wanted it. It was so great, to be led for a change; let someone else take the reins, and there was no one else for whom he could surrender away his control like he could for Yamato. With how nicely the muscle on Yamato's arm flexed just now, rimming Taichi's head, it was especially true. Now Taichi could feel what Yamato felt when Taichi had him. His mind was clear. Only Yamato's touch existed for him.

' _Yob's better not have done it with other people!'_

"I- I've never done anything like this Taichi, so…"

' _Do NOT squeal, Yagami. DO NOT!'_

Yamato planned this evening with tweezer-like precision and got high on the rush of having every bit of his wants executed perfectly thus far. The steering wheel was poking his back, but what's a little pain?

Lust was written all over Yamato and his hands clutched Taichi's T-shirt. Taichi gulped. He wasn't going to refuse.

Taichi pounced back into Yamato's mouth and tried tearing the jacket off him. Yamato pushed right back. He almost jumped over the gear box to get to Taichi's seat.

Perching himself with Taichi's knees trapped between his thighs, Yamato pulled the lever under the seat. It slid back like one of those lazy-boy couches and Yamato covered Taichi like a long, sexy scarf.

Taichi wanted to reward Yamato. He lifted his leg over Yamato's shoulder so that his foot hit the ceiling, showing some impressive, elastic acrobatics and giving Yamato a great presentation which Yamato appreciated plenty.

' _Shit…'_ Yamato didn't intend to bother taking off his jeans when he screwed Taichi. Yamato wanted to fuck him as if Taichi was just a common bimbo. Give him a little bouncy-bounce on his lap and make Taichi scream his name for him.

He ground into Taichi, panting. "Finally got you."

Some manoeuvring from Yamato eased the pressure on Taichi's groin, so Taichi still managed to find his inner clown. "Really? And what if some other man kissed me?"

There was nothing funny about the way Yamato stared at him in response. It was bloody scary, it was. "If you ever kiss another man, Taichi, a copper will find his head on a pike behind a fast food's piss alley. And _you_ will be tied to my bed for the rest of your life where I'll fuck you again and again and again and make you suck my dick till 'other man' taste is out of your mouth."

"… What the shit, dude?!"

At the shocked – spooked, to be honest – face Taichi showed him, Yamato did a 180 immediately. "I'm _so_ sorry. Shitty joke. My testosterone got in the way between my brain and my mouth." Yamato cupped Taichi's face in his palms and kissed him on the nose. That spot was sure-proof blackmail.

"Like, I appreciate you prioritising my arse but, seriously, chill."

"Sorry…"

When the sides of Taichi's lips went up, a silent ' _I forgive you',_ Yamato snaked his hand down to Taichi's bum and fondled it under Taichi's boxers. Taichi had a warm, plump booty and Yamato appreciated it. "I wanted this for a very long time…"

Taichi nodded. _'I know,'_ and he was as stubborn as Yamato. When Yamato tried laying him again, Taichi didn't let him get anywhere near his penis before Yamato stripped. Taichi wanted Yamato's tight stomach and muscled chest. He downright pouted and crossed his arms. Yamato rolled his eyes but gave in.

They tried fumbling with clothes. Renegade limbs hit plastic parts, the glass, and the ceiling of the van – the latter both by Taichi's foot and his head. Mist formed on the windows and the closed-off, tiny space was becoming so soggy and disgusting, Yamato was sticking into the cheap poly of the seats.

"Right. Fuck it."

Yamato kicked open the door. He darted to Taichi's side of the van, dragged his hands down the flanks of Taichi's thighs, hooked them under Taichi's knees, had Taichi's legs wrap around Yamato's waist, and wrenched Taichi off his seat before almost dropping his heavy arse on the ground.

Taichi yelped. Yamato relented and he and Taichi rolled their way out of the vehicle like a couple of dolts. After the relief of taking that first whiff of fresh air, Yamato took Taichi's hand and they ran deeper between the trees, away from prying eyes.

They found themselves in a clearing with a patch of green grass and not too many rocks.

It was the two of them, the wide open, and the sky.

Yamato threw his jacket on the ground and side-eyed Taichi, who stared right back at him. They laughed. It wasn't much of a space for two grown-ass men, but whatever.

Arriving from behind, large hands went prodding under Yamato's T and divested him out of it. A warm, sultry breath ghosted up and down his neck, sighing when it towed a kiss to the top of Yamato's left shoulder blade. Fingers cascaded the length of his torso, pinching the piercing on his belly-button – their favourite spot – and the one on his nipple – the second place. Finally, two palms were on his hips and the hard body behind him swayed gently from one foot to the other, till he and Taichi were dancing to music they made up.

Yamato turned around inside the muscled hoop Taichi built around him. No protests were raised when he laid his hands on Taichi's chest, or when he did nothing but look at Taichi while lowering him to the ground.

Yamato's eyes – they shone with the stars behind his head. Taichi floated in space through Yamato's pupils and he thought he saw Andromeda there. The stars, the thick trees, the musky scent of humid soil, and Yamato on top of him was like being in the Digital World again. Taichi couldn't stop smiling.

Taichi reckoned Yamato was also reliving a time like that because he had that _look_. That intense look only Yamato got. He cupped Taichi's cheek, and traced Taichi's lower lip with his index. This is definitely how Taichi wanted to go. _'Fuck!'_ Taichi loved this so much, when Yamato was like this – the way Yamato stared at him, with his undivided attention trained on Taichi and nothing else. Like nothing else but Taichi mattered to him. If this were the last thing Taichi did in his life… yeah.

"Let's strip." Yamato straddled Taichi's waist and hauled Taichi's T-shirt over his head. Yamato's hands worshiped Taichi's chest and admired the jump of muscles beneath them while his own muscled torso and narrow waist were on display.

Yamato's own jeans, though, stayed on for now. Taichi loved Yamato in his uber tight skinnies.

And true to his reputation, Taichi couldn't avert his gaze from the way Yamato's jeans hugged his hips. Taichi did love Yamato's body – it was thin, but toned and muscular. Athletic from casual work-outs. Great male aesthetic.

Yamato slowly eased Taichi's boxers down his thighs. His hands roved Taichi's body and Taichi melted under them. He looked away, red in the face, letting Yamato enjoy this rare coy moment of his.

"You can be rougher, Yamato. I _am_ a man…"

"It can't be helped…" Despite what Yamato thought he wanted earlier, doing this to Taichi was different from anything he fantasized about or experienced while having sex. "No one else will have me like you do," he whispered near that sensitive spot under Taichi's ear and laid a tender kiss on Taichi's temple. From it, he descended the warm pieces of Taichi's physiognomy, from the vale bridging his nose to the hills of his cheeks. Taichi giggled when Yamato's fringe tickled his neck and it was great.

Yamato inserts himself into Taichi's mouth, drawing circles inside his cheek. Blindly, he groped around the jacket they were fooling around on and tried finding the inner pocket to get to the lube he stashed in it.

' _Ah!'_ found it!

"Take out my cock, will you, blud?"

' _God, fucking hell!'_ but there was something so ungodly sexy about Yamato when he commanded Taichi and used a bad-boy front-man attitude to do it. Taichi jumped up and yanked Yamato's zip down, almost tearing off the button, while Yamato poured some transparent goo on his fingers.

The hard, swelling member leapt and quivered in Taichi's face. It was slick and shiny under the moonlight. Taichi gave it a soft tug and ran his tongue along the prettily blushing tip with the am-I-a-good-boy? deer eyes he reserved for Yamato and food leftovers.

Yamato very much liked it, but – "You're such a babe, Taichi, but I need you to move your head."

Taichi obeyed and Yamato greased up his hungry beast. After Yamato's cock was well-lubed, his hands skidded from Taichi's waist to the taut, rounding curve of his buttocks.

When Taichi's knees were separating, his heart was about to smash his ribs. "It's an anus, Yamato! Be nice to it!"

Slickening his fingers properly, till the lubricant was dripping down his arm, Yamato smirked and stroked the little space between Taichi's balls and hole, slowly traversing to the virginal, toffee-coloured pucker. He pried Taichi's globes a bit further apart and dabbed the tight muscle of Taichi's ring with a good dose of gel. In slow, massaging motions, Yamato circled it, removing the tension from the muscular bod' under him.

He could just imagine that tight pucker sucking him in with so much friction. Very gently, Yamato inserted his middle finger between the narrow walls; he knew how painful the first time can be.

"Does it hurt?"

"No," Taichi breathed out, "but it's kinda weird. The area around the hole – I think I like it there."

"That's good."

Taichi's small, pained expressions, combined with him throwing his head back and his soft mewls, did nothing for Yamato's patience, though.

In a few seconds of prodding into his boyfriend's anus, Yamato found that small walnut swell inside Taichi that would send him to new heights of pleasure. Yamato pushed his finger directly at it, nudged a bit, and added rubbing as he'd gone deeper.

Results were immediate. Taichi clung onto Yamato and made all sorts of voices which indicated how thoroughly Taichi was enjoying himself: moaning, grunting, whispering Yamato's name softly. If Yamato were a cat, he'd be purring.

' _Holy HolyAngemon!'_ Taichi's mind screamed. What was Yamato doing to him?!

"Come here…" Yamato grunted, curled Taichi's legs around his waist and pulled Taichi up till he was sitting in Yamato's lap, facing him.

When Taichi was flush against Yamato's knuckle, Yamato churned inside Taichi's rectum. Yamato's middle finger went in and out, stroking along that sensitive bundle inside Taichi's arse that was setting him off in such a lovely way, with practiced skill.

Slowly, Taichi arched his back, asking to take it deeper, and rocked himself on the digit to the rhythm Yamato dictated inside him. Biting his lip, eyes half closed – when Taichi's breath quickened, Yamato lifted his palm to the golden-brown chest to feel Taichi's heart rate and his needy pants.

Yamato inserted another finger and Taichi's breath became erratic.

"Shuu," Yamato lulled, "'s alright. A bit more," and added a third finger. Taichi's breathing was becoming shallow and fast. He'd be ready for Yamato in seconds.

Taichi whimpered and shook in Yamato's arms. Taichi's flesh had been stretched _so_ much – but Yamato was so patient with him. He attuned himself to every sound, every movement in Taichi's body, down to the little shudders up his foot. Yamato really wanted to make Taichi happy with his body.

The fingers were all worm-y inside his butthole and sure, it was a bit uncomfortable for a few seconds there, but Taichi was kind of surprised at how fast he started liking it again. There was more Yamato in him and those magnificent digits knew what Taichi wanted. He was being pleasured up his bum and he was completely overjoyed with it. So when Yamato removed his fingers, careful not to hurt Taichi's internals, Taichi was sad and externalised it – a smidgen pathetic for a moment. Not in the annoying way – in the cute puffed-up-cheeks-and-stuck-out-lip way.

But the vacuum left by Yamato's digits was filled when Yamato's rock-hard organ began sliding between Taichi's rectal walls. It pulsed under the gaping pucker leading into Taichi, telling him how much Yamato wanted him, and squelched every time it moved.

"You do it, Taichi. Take your time and get my dick inside your arse…"

Well, that was kinky in a way Taichi respected. Impaling his little a-hole on a thick, hungry member. To think only a couple of weeks ago he was hetero. Maybe he really was a slut? At least for Yamato he was.

Taichi stopped trying to figure himself out because Yamato pulled him into a glorious kiss and Taichi's brain bleeped out. He held his body weight against Yamato's shoulders and started easing Yamato into his body.

Taichi's clasp hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but Yamato ignored it. When that unbelievable, wet pressure was gripping him on all sides like a vice, Yamato clasped the back of Taichi's head, fingers yanking Taichi's hair, and growled. Taichi's butthole hugged his member very snugly.

And Taichi – Taichi threw his arms around Yamato's neck, moaning into his jaw as a rather impressive dick made its way into Taichi's rectum.

The nerve-endings sprinkled around his anus buzzed with excitement. It felt so wrong at first, though. The initial few seconds of the intrusion into him were like having an object that wasn't supposed to be there in the first place ending up going the wrong way.

After that, when Taichi adjusted, the unexpected entry became pretty good. He kinda enjoyed having something in his arse. It made him feel pervy and sexy. Wow, he _did_ like the butt stuff after all. And letting a rock-star fuck him in his van technically made him Yamato's groupie, no? Alright, they were not technically _in_ the van, but they got here _with_ the van, had steamed up the windows _in_ the van, and they were pretty close to the van. It counts. This was fun! Yamato made him feel super-hot and desired. Also… he liked the rough bits as well.

Yamato hissed, hard, "You're so good, Taichi… So _tight_ ," while shoving the head deeper, impatient, but restrained, absolutely refusing to hurt Taichi. He kissed Taichi on the side of his neck and trailed a few more smooches along Taichi's shoulders. All those years of football practise were demonstrated in the tight grip of Taichi's fantastic thighs. Yamato should really make use of Taichi's bendability in this golden opportunity.

He buried his hands in Taichi's hair and pulled Taichi's head back, sinking his teeth to leave a purple bruise on Taichi's collarbone before lapping at the offended part.

And _god_ , was Taichi beautiful; face creasing in pleasure and body glistening with sweat and pre-cum.

"What do you say, 'Chi? Wanna have a little bouncy-bounce on my knob?" Yamato murmured with the smug face of a complete arsehole.

Taichi levelled Yamato's grin, one-third laughed, one-third groaned hard, and one-third lost his breath. "Take me, you well-endowed piece of perfection!"

So Yamato pinned down Taichi's hips to Yamato's lap and glided into him. In instants, Taichi's knuckles were white from gripping Yamato's shoulders. Yamato's hands travelled to those solid thighs and grabbed them, encouraging Taichi to go up and down his cock.

Things got fast and slippery. Loud too.

Those heated browns were becoming unfocused and the wild moan that followed told Yamato he hit the little prostate dead on. Taichi getting so turned on with Yamato inside him and all those ripped muscles tensing at the sensation – Taichi was fucking amazing! And he was incredibly submissive and moaning so loudly. Needy and sweet and slutty and full. It wasn't just the physical aspect of the sex – but also watching Taichi letting go.

"You're a bit slutty, aren't you, Taichi?"

Yamato picked up something in Taichi's body language. He thought that, maybe, he saw Taichi descending into a form of sub-space. Huh. In retrospect, it's not like it was unlike Taichi or anything. It's just that it was kinda funny; to the world, they were probably already broken, but they fixed each other just right. Taichi scratched Yamato's itches, so Yamato would scratch Taichi's. It's not like Yamato objected to the idea either. He could want this: to revel in, and monopolize, Taichi's trust and become his guide in the darkness.

"Taichi," Yamato tried being as domineering as he could, "sit on my dick and fuck yourself." Taichi observed Yamato through those large deer eyes he had and obeyed. No questions or protests. Nothing. Taichi wanted this. His deepest desire at that moment was to surrender and let Yamato take him completely – Yamato understood that. "You are not allowed to let go of my shoulders until I cum. Am I clear?"

Taichi nodded.

Yamato gave Taichi so much affection. Taichi had all of Yamato's attention. Taichi loved this. He loved this so much. Taichi loved being helpless in Yamato's lap and letting Yamato have full charge of him. His limbs were not his because they were a part of Yamato. They were an extension that connected Yamato to him. It was really good. Yamato was trying all these new things he thought would make Taichi feel good and loved. It made Taichi so happy.

"Yamato, please…" Taichi was pleased and let Yamato do whatever he wanted to him.

Making Taichi happy and doing all those things he liked to him was bloody terrific. As much as Yamato _loved_ seeing his cock disappear between Taichi's malleable bubble-butt, bringing joy to Taichi topped the sex itself.

Yamato smoothed a hand down Taichi's back, fingers sliding against Taichi's buttocks and squeezing it softly. As if everything else about him wasn't enough, _'fucking hell,'_ Taichi's voice was so sexy! Just hearing it made Yamato's body hurt. Yamato wouldn't tell Taichi 'cause he won't hear the end of it if he did, but he'd dedicate half his life to producing it. Maybe his musical hearing was at fault, but Taichi's voice producing these kinds of sounds turned Yamato on so hard! It was the smutty equivalent of an aria – and Taichi was letting it out with lips which formed blushing rings.

They were fucking like they wanted all barriers between them – skin, flesh, muscles, bones, marrow, and sinews – to dissolve and let them blend seamlessly with each other. Only be.

Yamato was pistoning, going deep and hard, in and out, driving himself furiously into Taichi, who thrust himself downwards to meet Yamato midway and scream his lungs and pleasure out.

Taichi's world was a mad soup of disconnected lights and sounds, at the centre of which existed only Yamato and his good, hard cock. With the lack of thoughts, Taichi's body tensed like a coiled spring.

"Oh god! Oh god! Oh my god! Yamato!" Taichi never had an orgasm like this before. It was like having a tsunami building inside him and tearing him apart at the collision point.

Yamato as well. He shook violently, digging his nails into the hard flesh behind Taichi's thighs.

A hard jerk deep inside Taichi's butthole signalled Yamato's nearing release and made Taichi cry.

"Can I come inside…?" Yamato ragged against Taichi's shoulder, using all the feeble remains of his mental strength to form syllables.

Beyond the heavy fog of sex in his brain, Taichi managed to formulate to himself that he wasn't ready for that yet. He shook his head, slow and hazy.

Yamato understood and pulled out with one, sharp motion that elicited a cute "ahh!" out of Taichi.

Yamato stuffed his shaft between Taichi's buns and continuing to grind against their warm, slick pressure. He grabbed them and kneaded them into each other roughly, getting his cock nice and snugly – like a hotdog. He barely lasted a few seconds.

Jet after hot jet sprayed Taichi's lower back and trickled down his arse while Yamato emptied himself on him.

It was a very weird, embarrassing feeling.

Taichi dropped, boneless, on Yamato's shoulder, burying his face in the hollow of Yamato's neck. That was unbelievable.

Soft lashes closed against Taichi's rosy cheeks and it took a lot of will power on Yamato's end to _not_ coo at Taichi as if he was a big baby. That's how cute Taichi was! Yamato moved Taichi's sweaty bangs out of his face and ran fingers through his sticky hair. "So, how was having my wee-wee up your po-po?"

Taichi flung an arm around Yamato's shoulder and pulled him closer. "I'll have to put aloe in my arse today." His face was one hundred percent pure, distilled sunshine, though, and if egos could orgasm, Yamato would have been jizz.

"You know, 'Chi, you totally have what it takes to be a pretty boy bottom." Yamato moved his finger along Taichi's naked thigh and up the never-ageing lines of his face.

Taichi yawned enormously and rubbed his eyes. He was the type that falls asleep right after sex. "Cheers, mate. I can get used to it."

"To be a bottom it's not enough to just enjoy getting a piece inside your anus, though. You have to really want having it _all_ going all the way up into your rectum."

There was some sort of attempted protest which turned into an attempted laugher the moment Taichi realised Yamato was taking the piss that got swallowed up in Taichi's slobbering over Yamato's shoulder.

"But you're a cute little bottom with a cute little bottom. Not so little now, though."

He shifted his body around and rubbed Taichi's tummy as if he expected to get a baby inside him. "Speaking of, how does the cute little bottom feel?"

"It'll be better when you stop saying 'cute little bottom'."

Taichi dropped off Yamato's thighs and they tried moving around on Yamato's metre X metre jacket so they won't plunge their naked bollocks into the dead grass and dirt. Yamato ended up employing Taichi's precious booty as a pillow.

"Damn, your fat arse really is cushion-y."

"Told ya so." Taichi put a cartoonish grin on while Yamato appreciated that cute, fat arse to the extreme. It had nice curves. Yamato had to be deprived of it momentarily, though, when Taichi announced "safety!" and shook Yamato off just in time for a little "pook" sound to come out of Taichi.

"Sorry, 'Mato," Taichi said while waving away the sulphate odours.

"Nuh. At least you didn't Dutch-oven me this time."

There was definitely something to be said for Taichi's bodily aptitude. When they got up, he still managed to walk straight despite the pretty hardcore fucking he just received. Yamato slipped a protective arm around him and pulled Taichi closer. "Good thing football season is over. You would have had a hard time running and kicking after this."


	19. Chapter 19

Epilogues: For Me… All the Noises Join to Make Harmony

Fast forward one week, and they couldn't keep their dicks for themselves. They sucked at resisting. Completely helpless. Whenever possible, fooling around was the way to go and the more they were together, the more desperate they got. They were like animals with nil urge control.

Just that morning, Taichi woke up to find Yamato's soft lips attached to his cock, sucking him idly into a "top of the morning to ya!". _"Sometimes, a man simply deserves to get woken up with a blowjob,"_ Yamato explained his sensual techniques. Then they met, lips over for coffee. Taichi wanted to have sex almost every night and Yamato considered it wicked-fun. Plus, Taichi adapted to this life-style mighty fast; he had all the big dick energy required to play the dom for Yamato, but then had some extra to spare to full-on beg for some dick for himself.

They'd stop in some family restaurant for dinner, where Taichi would wolf down food and Yamato would marvel at Taichi's metabolism all over again, and for more sex. Good, heated, passionate, mad, angry sex. One moment Yamato was slurping his curry and the next he had Taichi's fingerprints all over his arse, very much intending to make Yamato scream and scream for hours from being so royally, shamelessly, fully had. Half an hour after that, Taichi had his wrists tied up with his old school tie while he was bent over the window and fucked good by Yamato from behind. Two hours later, they were rolling around the house, switch-hitters battling for bottoming.

It's not that Yamato's issues regarding the current status of their relationship had all been vanquished. They didn't go anywhere. He wished. He was still terrified and those fears were in the back of Yamato's mind every day, but when it got bad, he talked to Taichi about it. Maybe… some of them started eroding.

In between, Taichi and Yamato were all too satisfied with each doing his own thing while sharing the space together, like they always had. Yamato jammed on his bass, Taichi read Manga and it was a real banger. A happy time spent well. It was quiet, but they could feel each other there. It was enough – that sense of presences interacting in the room. Taichi called Yamato beautiful once by accident. Not in a sexual way – simply out of nowhere. Yamato continued playing and rubbed Taichi's ankle.

As a matter of fact, since Yamato was too lazy to cook that night, they'd just emerged from one such family-owned, tonkatsu-serving establishment a minute before its closing time. They slugged to Taichi's car where Yamato wrapped his arms around Taichi's waist and placed his head on Taichi's shoulder before they started snogging widely in the car park.

"It's like being eighteen all over again," Taichi said and pushed his tongue back into Yamato's mouth.

Yamato moved back for a second. "Taichi…"

But Taichi went in again.

"Taichi…?"

Moan.

"Taichi!"

"What?!"

"I have a new pair of knickers," Yamato rumbled deep in his throat above Taichi's ear shell. "They are lacy with polka dots. Fancy taking a peep?"

Wearing things like that was _sexy_. It had that psychological effect which caused Yamato to feel very desirable. Taichi also had an obvious kink for it.

But what made the whole situation comical for Taichi was how serious Yamato was when he propositioned. Trust Yamato to admit to cross-dressing with a straight face. It was either that or flushing like mad for him – no middle ground.

Either way, the answer was yes, and they sneaked into an alley, each with an arm around the other's waist, and Yamato could feel Taichi's eyes on his arse whenever he bumped into his hips.

Taichi backed Yamato into the wall, turned him around, and bent him over, one hand clutching Yamato's hips and the other pushing his back down. Taichi bit Yamato's ear and cooed, "I swear, every time you bend over I get brain damage."

He pulled down the back of Yamato's jeans, just to have a peek. Yamato cheekily stuck his bum out, prepping it in perfect position to be slapped while wriggling it against Taichi's major boner.

"Is being inside me that good, Taichi?"

"Like you won't believe, you motherfluffer. You have no idea how warm and tight it is in you."

This was definitely Yamato's up-side when he was bottoming: that sensation of letting go, of having his body adored, of being full with someone else. The downside was of course the things that dripped out of him and dirtied his undies. And of course, the times when he and Taichi got a bit too wild and Yamato had to carry a pillow around all day to sit on.

Taichi's hands travelled to Yamato's glorious behind again and he moaned. Fresh, hot pre-cum was leaking from Yamato's beautiful dick into the lace and Taichi almost died when Yamato said, "Taichi, I just want your hot, throbbing, machine-gun of a dick going in and out of me in a jack-rabbit pace and I don't care which hole you're using for that purpose."

Taichi sighed. "This Sunday is going to be like a season finale for my life."

His arms wrapped Yamato up and he went under Yamato's undies for a rub. Yamato pushed Taichi to the wall and sunk with his hips into Taichi's lap.

They were unbuttoning each other and working on belts and zips. Yamato's cold hands ran up Taichi's flaming skin, sweeping along Taichi's perked nipples that completely begged for a suckling mouth. He hiked a knee to the wall near Taichi's left thigh so Taichi could run his hands over it and use it for balance.

Bodies pressed together, Yamato latched on Taichi's sharp deltas while Taichi was shuffling down the music list on Yamato's phone for some bass-heavy music they'd hump wildly to.

One of Taichi's hands ran up and down Yamato's toned arms. With the other Taichi fisted Yamato's hair and pulled his head to the side till the milky throat was exposed to him. "I'll shag you right – all night, Yama," Taichi rumbled and sucked on Yamato's jugular.

If Taichi hadn't known how his name sounds tumbling from Yamato's lips during an orgasm, he could have lived the rest of his life not knowing. But he knew and there's no way he'd be able go without it. Ergo, twisting their bodies around again, harsh hands forced Yamato against the wall and shot down into his lacy knickers, groping the soft buttocks harder and caressing Yamato's cock – touching and grasping whatever.

"Taichi! Fuck! My ass!"

"I have every bit the intention to."

Yamato looked over his shoulder and made sure Taichi was looking back at him. "Finger me first, this time. If I end up with haemorrhoids, you aren't getting any."

Taichi let Yamato suck on his fingers and introduced their slickness, clad with long strings of dripping saliva, to Yamato's bleached arsehole.

Yamato tried bucking into him, but Taichi held Yamato's hips pinned in place against the wall and kept Yamato from moving. Yamato was so sexy like that – vulnerable and needy.

Taichi whipped out his pulsing member. When he aligned it against Yamato's pucker and started pressing, the little hole twitched like crazy.

Taichi went in with a single thrust and took Yamato from behind. Yamato clenched his fists against the wall and scratched the bricks.

"I'm gonna take you so hard. I'll shove my cock into your cute little ass and when I'm done fucking your sweet bum, I'll shove it in your mouth," Taichi murmured around it and then came that moan, along with the slutty, "your cock is so big, Taichi. It's so good," that Taichi learnt to anticipate and which preluded the evaporation of all his inhibitions.

They were rutting like animals. The wall was skinning Yamato's tummy. When Taichi dug his fingers into Yamato's soft thighs and fucked him into the bricks while hammering down on his prostate, the only things getting out of Yamato were along the lines of, "AAaah! Fuck!"

Spreading himself on the hard chest behind him, liquefied, Yamato reached his arms back to tangle in Taichi's mass of hair. One went behind Taichi's neck and pulled him down to Yamato's mouth for a rough snogging session, sliding their tongues over each other. And to make it easier for Yamato to whisper, "faster."

Taichi scooted back to sit on the edge of some crate behind him and Yamato impaled himself on Taichi's stiff tool, rolling his hips with Taichi deep inside him. Going all the way down and squeezing on the way out.

The leverage was just enough to let Taichi pound into Yamato even harder. He squished Yamato's buns into each other, hotdogging and enjoying the image of Yamato's fatty cheeks wrapping Taichi's shaft snugly.

A few good thrusts of that, and Taichi turned Yamato around to fuck him face-to-face. And gravity? What gravity? Screw gravity! Taichi's libido had no rivals. He held the back Yamato's neck possessively, just like his best-friend-boyfriend loved it, and climbed back into Yamato's satisfied mouth to match him.

Their abdominals slapped each other between their bodies and it was somehow soothing and homey.

"You like cumming in my tight, little arse?" Yamato wheezed out somehow between moans– a sure sign he'd be done soon and wanted Taichi to follow.

The answer he expected, however, was _not,_ "Go away, sick perverts! I'm calling the police!" coming from some hag on the top floor.

Yamato had no idea how he had his trousers back on, but he was leaning against Taichi's car, pulling up his zip, and smiling with all his teeth out at Taichi who was still panting next to him. Not for the reasons he intended to pant for, but that's life. After catching his breath, Taichi met Yamato's stare and they laughed their faces off.

Taichi slipped an arm around Yamato's shoulders. "Let's go home, get in bed, and form Omegamon."

"I'm not sure what's worse – you saying that or that it works as a sexual innuendo," Yamato said after blinking at him.

They got themselves into the car and Taichi started the engine. "Speaking of Omegamon, when did you think about telling Agumon and Gabumon?"

Taichi wasn't sure if the red on Yamato's cheeks was a result of the high-adrenalin activity they engaged in only two minutes ago, or the question, but Yamato shrugged and looked outside the window.

"I don't think they have any comparable functions and I am not going to force Koushiro to break time and space just so I could have the birds and bees talk with them. Besides, I think they are programmed to sense things like that about us by themselves."

Taichi snuck a quick glance at him before returning his eyes to the road, ever the sceptic. "Really? You don't think it's important to mention the sexual component of human behaviour to someone who can burst through the door while we're shagging each other's arses?"

"So what do you want me to do? Go to the Digital World with a sex ed Power Point presentation, banana, and a condom?"

"No, I want you to not be passive about it or pretend it's trivial!"

"It _is_ trivial!"

"No, it's not! They should know about something like this."

"So what do _you_ want to do, fearless leader?!"

"It's not nuclear physics, Yamato! We just go there and tell them that sex is a thing we do and that we want privacy when we do it."

"They aren't children," Yamato ground through his teeth.

Taichi gave him a flat look.

Yamato relented. "Let's at least ask Koushiro what he thinks, alright?"

"Fine…"

"Fine."

They drove like that for a few more minutes – each silently fuming in his seat – until Yamato decided this was bogus. "By the way… Taichi?"

"…Yeah?"

Yamato shook his head, probably redder than the heart of the sun. "Any chance you'll wear your goggles to bed?"

A furious blush on mocha cheeks, which matched Yamato's, accommodated, "perv..."

"Please?"

"Is that really your thing…?"

"Like _you_ won't believe, you motherfluffer."

Stopping at the red light, Taichi and Yamato took each other in.

"Alright, but you'll owe me for desecrating them."

After parking beneath Yamato's flat, Taichi gave Yamato a look.

Yamato knew that one. He knew what Taichi wanted and Taichi knew the effect it had on Yamato.

They scrambled through the hall, but didn't make it to the room before Yamato dived to his knees and began sucking Taichi off.

When they did manage to make it through his bedroom door, Yamato covered Taichi's eyes with his palms and whispered, "close your eyes and undress me slowly..."

Yamato peeked between his fingers to make sure Taichi's eyelids were shut like they should. He took Taichi's hands and put them on his hips, giving Taichi a starting point at the hem of Yamato's shirt.

It wasn't hard getting Taichi into it. This was supremely hot. Taichi slid his hand under Yamato's shirt, listening to Yamato's subtle breathing. He was peeling of Yamato's T and he was slow – just like Yamato asked. Thumbs brushed the clefts of Yamato's wound abs that rose and fell with his tummy. It quivered under Taichi's finger tips, telling him how hard he was turning Yamato on and robbing Yamato of his functions.

Up, up, up Taichi explored the oscillatory design of Yamato's ribs. He ran his hands around Yamato's breastbone experimentally, climbed further up, pulled off Yamato's shirt, and let it drop from his shoulders, sailing to the ground.

Taichi gave Yamato's neck a few more love-bites before kissing down his bare torso and lingering on it. He wanted to suck on Yamato's pierced nipple something bad and it hardened into a sensate pebble in Taichi's mouth. Taichi pulled the metal with his teeth, so rough he almost tore it out of Yamato. He waited for that "Ah! Fuck!" of intense pain and pleasure Yamato made, before flicking his tongue against it and continuing South. This was the stuff dreams are made of.

When standing became a serious obstacle between Taichi and Yamato's belly button, Taichi had to find the edge of the bed with his arse and groped his way back to Yamato's body. There, he pulled Yamato to him and dipped his head into Yamato's gorgeous navel – Taichi's personal treasure.

While licking in and out of Yamato's belly button, and playing with yet another piece of metal, Taichi's hands took slow detours along the body of Yamato. He smoothed them down the firm biceps bulging from Yamato's thin arms, up Yamato's chest, and all the way in and around his fantastic ass. Resolution came only when Taichi shoved both under Yamato's jeans and squeezed his luscious buns.

Yamato almost fell on him, but latched on to Taichi's shoulders with both of his shaking hands curled into a fierce grip.

One of Taichi's hands moved to the forefront and tore off anything that kept Yamato's trousers up and closed. He was lucky Yamato didn't bother fastening his buckle on the way back home.

With his mouth still lapping at Yamato's stomach, Taichi ripped Yamato out of his clothes and bit him – exactly where Taichi's lips were hovering over. When Yamato gasped, Taichi's fingers skidded across the warm skin of Yamato's flanks until Taichi reached the pubic bone. He crooked two fingers and pushed them inside Yamato.

Yamato moaned and Taichi sensed him moving forward, setting his knees on either side of Taichi till he was sitting in Taichi's lap and moving his arse up and down Taichi's digits. Arms perched behind Taichi's head, Yamato flurried a stream of kisses down his warm neck. When he laid a deep, open-mouthed one on the gentle indenture between Taichi's shoulder and throat, Taichi whined and flipped them over, caging Yamato with his body.

"You can open your eyes now." Yamato lay back and spread his knees wide, exposing the small hole Taichi wanted to enter. "I want you to dominate me tonight, Taichi."

Taichi's precious self-control was seriously dwindling. Again. There was no winning with Yamato! He'd give Taichi pain so he could take his pain away.

One of Yamato's hands settled on the base of Taichi's skull, pulling him into Yamato's mouth, and another slid down Taichi's back, running across the length of muscled brown _._

The original idea they had in mind was to break the kiss so Taichi could pull off his shirt, but Taichi had an additional one.

"Don't move," he commended. He got off Yamato and moved to open the window.

Noise syphoned inside like a hydraulic tube.

"I want everybody on the street to know I'm fucking you."

"Bugger off!" Yamato barked, but thoroughly enjoyed Taichi's possessive streak. Though Taichi stopped being jealous right after they mutually agreed that this is how they want to live. That's it. Gone. He was completely relaxed about it. He didn't doubt how deep Yamato's loyalty ran.

Making the pedestrians listen to Taichi fucking Yamato didn't exactly go according to Taichi's plan. The glass of that rackety old window didn't budge and the screeches Taichi forced out of it pissed Yamato off and squared his impatience.

"Freakin' hell Taichi! Get over here or I'll fuck myself!"

Now here's a fun idea. Taichi would gladly see _that_ again.

"Do it. I want to see you," Taichi ordered more than asked. He pounced back into the bed, the springs beneath him creaking their angst.

Spinning them around, Taichi sprawled himself diagonally on the mattress and grabbed Yamato's waist with little care for gentleness. So what if Yamato'd get a new mark or two? Just a little bruise.

Taichi played around a bit with Yamato's body, turning him this way and that, till Yamato was facing away from Taichi on all fours. Finally, Yamato was in the perfect, vulnerable pose – on his spread knees, with his pried open arse high in the air and right in Taichi's face; white, delicious thighs parted to show Taichi a pink hole. Yamato was on complete display for Taichi.

His cheek was pressed to Taichi's inner thigh and the stiff, brown cock was rubbing Yamato's nose every time Taichi gave it a yank.

"Do it. Fuck yourself."

Yamato blinked at Taichi once, with a kind of honest, doe-eyed stare that made Taichi's member twitch with excitement. Taichi watched, hypnotised, as Yamato's slick finger circled the tight, red ring, making it shiny and glossy, before Yamato pushed it into his well-used passage.

Taichi counted the seconds till Yamato's hole slurped the digit all the way until the last knuckle was in and then spit it back out with a lovely mewl from Yamato.

"Another one." Taichi kicked off his trousers and briefs from under Yamato, and fell back on the bed with a hard grip over his swollen cock.

Yamato did what he was instructed to, and Taichi got a load of Yamato pinching his eyes shut and biting his lower lip when another finger slipped its way into his arse. From here, Taichi could really see the tender skin around the ring stretching till it became a blushing red and clinging to Yamato's knuckles, moving as a small fold every time they came in or out. What a view!

He began shaking and it was very erotic.

"Two fingers isn't wide enough, Yamato. You know how big I am." Taichi sucked on his own middle finger, lubricating it with saliva, and shoved it inside Yamato too. That was so hot!

Yamato yelped and started moaning and groaning like an animal with rabies while riding everything that was inside his arsehole back and forth.

It was more than Taichi could take. His wild hard-on cried to be buried deep inside Yamato _now_. It was about to explode in his hand!

Taichi pulled out all their fingers and Yamato instinctively wanted them back, but he was about to get something much bigger and much better. What he didn't expect was for Taichi to grab his hips, pull him down towards him, and make him sit on Taichi's face. Or that Taichi'd grab Yamato's old school tie out of fuck knows where and use it to tie Yamato's hands behind his back.

"You have very pretty thighs, Yama…" Taichi said. He nipped and bit Yamato's inner thighs, feasting on _his_ lovely boy and sucking on both sides, till Yamato's milky skin was an ocean of love bites, and mewling complaints were dropping out of his lush mouth like syrup. So sexy. Really, such a kitten. Taichi licked him all over. It cost him a lot of mental fortitude points not to straight up eat his kitten out, but Yamato didn't let Taichi do a rim-job on him without washing first. Shame. He had such a soft butt. _'Yummy-yama'_.

"Crap, Taichi, I'm a man. Don't say stupid shit like that…" But Yamato wore his extra-large smirk while rubbing his foot along Taichi's body, telling him he wanted it bad.

Swirling him upside down, Taichi smiled hugely at Yamato's white-hot, half-lidded, sexed-out face. It was reflected right back at him.

"I want you. _Now_ ," Yamato purred into his mouth and Taichi swallowed each noise he produced, like a baby bird feeding.

He turned them around and spread Yamato's legs open beneath him. Yamato latched onto Taichi's shoulders and pulled, urging him to bring his body as low as possible so they could press their chests together and be much, much closer.

Taichi laved at his neck, going for that tender spot that made Yamato clutch to him and moan "Taichi…" in the dirtiest way Taichi ever heard his name being uttered. Having Yamato like this was hot for sure.

Taichi sneaked his hand inside the drawer and unwrapped a condom, slipping it on while keeping Yamato's knees open with his own.

One second before Taichi was about to plunge into that spasming hole, he had a funnier idea.

He started fucking Yamato in small motions, a shallow sort of demi-fuck, and waited for him to beg for Taichi's love.

Yamato panted and strained his eyes open, trying to push himself back unto Taichi's cock. His glare spelled 'what-the-fuck-do-you-think-you're-doing?!'

Taichi chuckled with a shit-eating grin all over his stupid face.

Every time Yamato tried pulling Taichi in for a kiss, Taichi retreated and remained hovering over him, close enough to torture Yamato with hot breath over his swollen lips but nowhere near close enough to satisfy him. When Yamato tried raising his head to follow him, Taichi placed a hand on Yamato's throat till he almost chocked himself on it and had to lie back down. He was so frustrated and needy and in so much pain.

Yamato raised his pelvis from the bed in demand and Taichi's grin got that much broader. "You seemed satisfied with just that, didn't you, kitten?" He slapped Yamato's arse. "Slut." Or rather, he slapped the piece of flesh between Yamato's arse and thigh, or whatever it was that wasn't hidden by the mattress and jiggled prettily when Taichi's hand hit it.

Keeping this game up was a constant struggle. The most amazing sensation in the world – Yamato's hole dilating around Taichi and trembling, asking so politely to be ripped open – was torturing Taichi's sensitive cock. Poor Taichi!

Especially after he got punched – with a hit that would _absolutely_ leave a purple welt tomorrow. Damn, that strong bastard! Yamato tore right through the knots. _'"dominate me" my arse!"'_

But Yamato had as much a yob-worthy expression on when he retaliated as Taichi had. "Taichi! Ravage me. Don't make me impatient!"

"You're a feisty little shit!" Taichi laughed his face off – with Yamato, not at him.

Faster than he could process, Yamato linked his ankles around Taichi's waist, turned them around so he was the one on top, and forced Taichi inside him till Taichi's entire hard length intruded on Yamato's body.

Yamato screamed from the pleasure of the powerful thrust. "Yes! Fuck! That hit the spot."

Raising his hands, Taichi ceded his defeat and they burst out, howling.

Taichi swirled them around again and spread Yamato's legs far apart. A wave of pride washed over him when Yamato's fists balled into the sheets he was being pounded through.

Yamato yelped from a particularly deep thrust and sent his arms over Taichi's back. A few minutes later, things got rough and Yamato threw his arms over his head and grabbed the bedpost. It served two purposes: leverage, so he'd get Taichi to fuck him harder, and also prevent his head from banging against the wood.

The house echoed with flesh slapping flesh, with harsh breathing, and with pleasured moans that filled the air. Yamato's hands ran along his face, his neck, his chest. He grabbed Taichi's buttocks, squeezed, and pulled like he was helping Taichi into his body.

Taichi leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together. His lips skimmed Yamato's nose and planted fluttery little kisses on it.

It was Taichi – and Taichi alone – to whom Yamato loved losing his control. Here he was powerless and it gave him a sense of strength. Here he was dominated and it gave him control. He loved being treated like a piece of meat when he asked for it. He loved how Taichi made him cry when he wanted him to. He loved how rough Taichi was to him when he begged for it. He loved seeing Taichi lose control for reasons different from his own. He loved how Taichi listened to what Yamato wanted and trusted them both with the execution. He loved that he could do this with him.

His pants left humid blotches against Taichi's jaw while his arse was being fucked into the mattress.

Yamato spun them around again, wanting that good penetration he got when he rode Taichi with gravity on his side.

It was at that moment that a duet composed of Daisuke's and Taichi's singing voices interrupted them and Yamato's vibrating phone dropped near his ankle.

Before he managed to kick it off, Taichi's elbow landed on the green answer key and Takeru's voice swelled up from the device. They exchanged apologetic glances with each other, Taichi for what he did and Yamato for what he was about to do.

He took a deep breath, picked up the phone, and became brave. "Sorry, Teeks, can't talk. I have the most gorgeous guy in the universe balls deep inside my poop-hole and he's hung like a goddamn Pegasus."

A moment of really, _really_ painful quiet had stressed on both sides of the line, until Takeru processed what he'd just heard. "Why did you answer the bloody phone?!"

"I'm bottoming, so it's all right," Yamato winked at Taichi, ensuring him he was joking just in case, "and yes, the sex is so good it hurts to exist. I'll probably need a nap and a new butthole tomorrow."

"Yeah… alright… Say hi to Taichi." Takeru hung up. Yamato stared at his phone, swallowing his saliva and turning red faster than an ambulance siren. The _cells_ of his body were grimacing.

Before Yamato was aware of anything else, Taichi grabbed Yamato's waist, hard, and forced that precious butthole as down as it could go on his dick while Taichi bucked his own hips upwards.

Yamato felt himself shoved down the cock and half yelped-half moaned.

Taichi yanked Yamato's phone away and threw it out of reach. "Stop worrying about it," he panted, "it happened. That's it. _"_

Yamato tilted his head forward and curled a hand around Taichi's feverish neck, dragging Taichi up for a kiss. "Alright…"

Yamato rode Taichi off and came hard all over Taichi's belly. Then he flipped them around and, while Yamato's dick was still up and wet, took Taichi from behind. Orgasms were so, _so_ much stronger like this and Taichi loved doggy style.

"Yama!... fuck, Yamato! The front! Do it from the front!"

Yamato didn't waste a second. Clasping Taichi's waste, he turned Taichi around and hiked one of his strong, sexy legs over Yamato's shoulder to use it for leverage. Get that nice angle to fuck him deep and hard.

Taichi was perfect, jiggling helplessly beneath him, moaning, writing, and loving Yamato moving in an out of him with the force of a jet-engine.

It wasn't long till Yamato had Taichi tightening around him. It was a spectacle when Yamato let Taichi release and dropped, boneless, next to Taichi, who wasn't any less of a pile of gooey flesh that snuggled up to Yamato.

Yamato stretched, curling his body sinuously under Taichi and brushed moist strands off Taichi's sweaty forehead before moving in to massage his scalp.

"You alright? Do you need anything? I didn't lube you..."

Taichi, all shy with a matching cute blush, looked away when he said, "another kiss?"

Yamato melted on the spot and complied with Taichi's wish. Taichi was such a pumpkin!

"And cuddles?"

Well, that was a given.

"I should get around to washing these." Yamato thumped the rumpled sheets, somewhat forlornly.

Taichi huddled further into his blanket and gave it a little whiff before burying his head in it. "You don't _have_ to… "

"Taichi, the room smells like arse."

"I don't wanna wash things you ejaculated on. It smells nice. Just let the sheets hang."

Yamato buried his face in Taichi's sweaty neck and poked his cheek. "And _I_ have fucked up tastes?"

He heard Taichi smiling into the sheets.

"I'm still going to wash them."

The evening sounds of the city filtered through the window Taichi left ajar.

Yamato tried to pry his way from under Taichi's body without waking him up, but had to face his failure when his wrist was taken hostage. "Boo!" Taichi complained, "Come back here and love me!"

"It's been a while since my stomach had something in it that wasn't semen. Want something from the kitchen?"

"Fetch me a beer," Taichi said, releasing him.

When Yamato walked back into the room with a shrimp sandwich and a cold, popped beer he handed over to Taichi, he received an appraising, up-and-down stare from his boyfriend.

Yamato swallowed his bite and spat, "what?"

"Let's go to the Omagari fireworks next week. We could go for a blinky run with a gallon of ice cream from Baskin-Robbins and there's going to be that foreign band you like. What say you?"

"You just want Takoyaki." Yamato was aware of what Taichi tried doing, and he tried doing it without making the situation awkward for Yamato. So Yamato rewarded him. "I like Aerosmith, but prepare to have a mildly good time with a hint of disappointment. There _is_ a substantial probability for something to go terribly awry, though…" He considered the proposition for a few more seconds. "A'right, yeah. I gues-" he coughed out a bulb of phlegm into a napkin, "A random activity we don't do every day… for our first date as an official couple… sounds… Nice."

"Cheers! You know, I heard somewhere that dating your partner in crime has the _best_ relationship potential."

Hey, just because they loved drinking, didn't mean they weren't crazy enough to have a good time sober.

"Maybe we'll see Teeks and Hika there. How perfect will that be?"

Yamato gave him a quick look and went back to chewing on his sandwich. "Too perfect, frankly."

"What do you mean?"

"There is no 'perfect.' If it's perfect, something's wrong. It's not like I want them to break up or anything. I'm just prepared for it."

Taichi stared at him with question marks around his head, so Yamato tried elaborating.

"Sometimes I get the feeling they're together out of inertia – not passion. I mean, they're very…" he twirled his unoccupied hand around in search for words. "Vanilla," he concluded. "Some relationships just work way better as platonic, you get me? Other times, I think they understand each other when other people can't. So… I donno'…"

"So what about Dai and Ken or Kou and Mimi?"

"Bloody hell, Taichi. Please don't be one of those people who get into a relationship and decide everyone else should be in one."

"I cannot guarantee any such thing."

Yamato snatched the Sapporo can from Taichi's fingers and gulped it down. "Then I'm withholding your beer rights."

Taichi's eyes pried open into flying saucers and he attempted to launch himself at his booze, but Yamato pushed him back down via one, strong hand against Taichi's chest that thrust him off. That's how Taichi was forced to witness Yamato finish every last drop of his favourite beverage.

"You're a monster!"

"So we have an understanding, yeah?"

Taichi pouted, "yes, sir," and when Yamato put the can down, Taichi pounced on _him_ with a vengeful attack of tickles.

Thus concluded their afternoon.

In the middle of the night, Yamato woke up into the warm neck he rested by, smiled, and brushed a small kiss into the skin there. Taichi made sleepy sounds and Yamato's grin broadened. He continued trailing swift smooches up Taichi's jawline and assaulting the firm lips above it with more soft kisses. He kissed them again and again, till Taichi started kissing him back.

When Taichi regained enough consciousness, Yamato rose to his knees under Taichi's inquisitive stare. He pulled down Taichi's waistband with clumsy tugs, till Taichi's half-erect member was in clear view.

Since Yamato slept naked on summer, he was pardoned from doing the same for himself. He moved one leg over Taichi's pelvis and straddled him, sucked on his pointing and middle fingers, and plunged them into his own arse. Yamato was still wide and well-lubed from earlier, so there wasn't much to prepare. He yanked them out of himself and leaned back with his entire body, hands on either side of Taichi's knees.

The second Taichi's cock was fully awake and willing to greet him, Yamato spread his bum and sat on Taichi's tool.

He rode Taichi, working himself up and down Taichi's very sizable erection.

It was slow. He stretched over Taichi like a cat, threw back his head at the sensation of every vain rubbing his inner walls as they sucked Taichi in and out, and moaned softly. He leaned forward, his hands worshipping Taichi's fantastic, rising and descending abs under them, and kissed Taichi sweetly. Nibbled on his neck a bit. Sometimes, Yamato arched his back into a feline curve with his eyes shut in pleasure and his eyelashes fluttering over his cheeks every time his bum hit Taichi's hips.

Taichi wrapped one lazy arm around Yamato's back to press them a bit closer, and caressed the gorgeous boy on his stomach, fingers sweeping across a tall spine.

"Is this you being romantic, Kitten?"

Yamato sniggered, but the sound was lethargic and unfocused. "I don't do romantic."

"Try? For me?"

"Since when are _you_ romantic?"

"I'm not. I just want to see you make an arse of yourself." Despite the statement, Taichi picked up Yamato's palm and kissed it for many long seconds. He lifted it, and kissed the wrist too, eyes still gauging Yamato, waiting for him.

Yamato had that face – when he gets ready for a challenge.

"Alright."

He slid off Taichi's erection and headed out to the entrance hall. Taichi followed Yamato's silhouette as it returned with a rough leather combat boot and tinkered with something around the eyelets.

' _Wha…?'_

It wasn't until Taichi's wrists were pinned down and tied in a shibari knot to the bedpost that Taichi was absolutely sure Yamato ain't gonna literally kick his ass: Yamato only needed the shoelace. The boot itself was dropped to the floor and ignored. Yamato didn't even bother putting it back near the apartment door's cabinet.

Sitting back on Taichi's hips, Yamato peered down, satisfied with his handiwork as the last loop went over the bed railings. Now Taichi was properly bonded.

As a person, Taichi was very complacent in the bedroom and that obedience went several layers deep.

Yamato stretched a hand to his nightstand, but instead of taking out condoms, he jerked open the second drawer. Yamato pulled out a box of strange, medical-like tools Taichi hadn't seen before, a pair of white, single-use latex gloves, a bottle of antiseptic, and a small barbell – just like the ones scattered along his body.

"What do you think, Taichi?" Yamato placed the metal rod against Taichi's navel, envisioning how the titanium would look going through it.

"But not there!"

Their eyes clashed. The fact the _location_ of the piercing was the main issue Taichi had here caught them both off-guard. Yamato, almost systematically, checked every CM on Taichi's face, making sure it was Taichi who had given him consent to go through with this and not Taichi's sex hormones.

"I thought navel piercings were your favourite."

"On _you_."

"So where do you want it?"

Taichi grinned. "The second favourite."

Yamato raised the barbell to Taichi's nipple. Taichi was right; it did look better there. "Which side?"

"Right."

Yamato nodded while slipping on the gloves. "I'm going to use a 14 gouge piercing. Unlike with your dick, just because it's thicker doesn't inherently mean the insertion is more painful. It actually makes the piercing more stable."

"Got it." Taichi laughed. Yamato talked about his dick again. "By the way, isn't there this thing where the side you pierce indicates the role you play in bed?"

"It's a thing. Didn't reckon you knew about it."

The conversation didn't last past this point. When Yamato dabbed the antiseptic-imbibed cotton ball against Taichi's dusky areola, the muscles beneath him tensed. Hard.

That won't do.

"How about we do it like this…?" Yamato offered and slid his bum back on Taichi's hips, bumping into the slackening erection and giving it a few rejuvenating caresses. "You. In me. While I pierce you…?"

Yamato switched between watching Taichi trying to fathom the paradoxical reactions of his own body – which was hilarious – and focusing on getting Taichi's meat up his arse again.

He clumped Taichi's nipple with a tool that looked like scissors but, instead of blades, had two hollow rings – and went further down Taichi's cock.

Having the flesh of his nipple shaved away didn't hurt as much as Yamato promised and there was almost no resistance, but it wasn't pleasant. The pressure, mostly.

While Yamato replaced the needle with the barbell and fastened the orb, Taichi's universe was a dissonance between the mad sensations he was experiencing down below and the invasive ones on his chest. Pleasure-pain, from inserting himself into Yamato and having Yamato insert something of himself into him.

Yamato finished. He threw the gloves to the bin, put the box back, and watched Taichi adjust and relax.

Taichi didn't need long. He pried open his knees for Yamato on instinct and wore a pretty pout. "Kitten, please do something nice to my bum."

Yamato grinned at the eagerness Taichi presented him with, and stuck two fingers into Taichi's anus while leaning towards him so they could passionately eat each other's faces. Yamato'd already learnt which angle worked best for Taichi and how Taichi liked to have his prostate massaged. Taichi got used to having his bum played with mighty quickly

"Let me tell you something," Yamato said after he let Taichi cum. He pulled out his fingers and held Taichi's shoulders so that Yamato's eyes were drilling indigo blue into him. "I will let you open me. I will open myself to you," he murmured – as if this entire exercise was not a result of Taichi's earlier teasing at all. "Open completely." Yamato impaled himself on the last few centimetres of Taichi's cock and thrust back up.

Hands moving to Taichi's stomach, Yamato rode him well into the night.

"My eyes," thrust "my ears," thrust, "my earlobes," thrust "my punctures," thrust "my hands," thrust "my fingers," thrust "my fingertips," thrust, "my lips," thrust, "my mouth," thrust, "my cavities," thrust, "my throat," thrust, "my eyelashes," thrust, "my tear ducts" thrust "my nostrils" thrust, "my sinuses," thrust, "my mind," thrust, "my chest," thrust, "my veins," thrust, "my arteries," thrust, "my tissues," thrust, "my pores" thrust, "my pipes," thrust, "my strings," thrust, "my toes," thrust, "my ankles," thrust "my legs," thrust, "my knees," thrust, "my thighs," thrust, "my arsehole that you love stuffing with your prick so much," thrust.

Yamato drove his canines through his lower lip, stifling a wild groan around the taste of fresh blood. "M-my… My…" thrust, "me-y," thrust, "me!" thrust, "me!", thrust, "ME!".

Yamato's hands fisted Taichi's wild mane, tugging and pulling, riding Taichi hard and drowning out the grates of rusty bedsprings with savage moans and promises.

The slapping sound of his arse hitting Taichi's soft thighs was loud and clapping. Yamato was practically bouncing on his cock.

Taichi couldn't tear his eyes away from him. He and Yamato disarming each other's protections and becoming defenceless in front of the other was nothing new, but it didn't mean he would stop being amazed by it all over again.

"They will be open and not close again!" Yamato orgasmed into Taichi's belly-button, filling it up with seed till it looked like a shot glass of kefir. He collapsed into Taichi's shoulder, splattering himself with a few cum drops.

Breathing deep, laboured and exhausted, Yamato slid down Taichi's sprawled body and rolled off him to drink his own creamy-white handiwork from Taichi's navel.

Once satiated, Yamato monkeyed his way up Taichi's chest and threw a knee over him. Yamato made Taichi look at him, an image of ecstasy that cooed, "swallow all of me, alright?"

How could Taichi ever refuse him? Their tongues matched, moving from one mouth to the other, snowballing the contents of Yamato's mouth. Meanwhile, Yamato reached between them and, with a well-practiced touch, was about to give Taichi a mind-blowing hand-job – if it weren't for the fact that Taichi had just got off. Was that from the kiss? F yeah! Yamato barely brushed his thumb on the tip of Taichi's penis before a thick spray coated his wrist. Taichi moaned so hard into his mouth, they spilled cum-imbibed saliva over their chins and throats.

For a few minutes, no one did anything other than panting over the other's face. That was some pretty intense orgasming.

"Happy…?" Yamato asked, finally managing to string syllables together.

"Exhilarated…" Taichi smiled like crazy, eyes still shut, coming down from the ecstasy.

"Romantic enough for you?"

The answer didn't matter. Yamato threw his body to the side, picked up his trousers from the floor, and took out his pocket knife. "We need to sort off your wrists."

He cut Taichi loose from the bondage and threw the blade on his nightstand before examining the tell-tale, deep chafing marks on Taichi's wrists.

Yamato would go shopping tomorrow; if this was going to continue, they needed to gear up. He'd get them some proper kinbaku ropes or satin ties. Whatever Taichi fancied. He also needed a new shoe-lace.

The first thing Taichi did after regaining his freedom was to weakly hug Yamato and stroke his muscular calf that was still thrown over Taichi's waist.

Yamato always had his own, strange way of being passionate, but 'wow' didn't begin to cover how tonight's shenanigans made Taichi feel. "Well…shit. If you're done using me, I'll have you know I love you so, so fucking much it makes me wanna meet my maker." Taichi pulled Yamato's neck and their lips melted against each other.

Taichi also pulled the blanket over his face so that only a pair of wild eyes, full of mischief, peeked over its rim.

"You aren't going to kill me in my sleep over the romantic thing, right?"

"I kinda hoped one day we'd both just drop dead mid-chain orgasms while tripping on acid. That's the ambition anyhow." Yamato lowered the hem of the quilt off Taichi's face and licked inside Taichi's ear-shell with every word when he asked, "wanna try the lacy knickers on next time?"

Heat spread across Taichi's face, but he nodded in the affirmative. Apparently, kinks turned him on pretty good as well.

"Hey, Ishida?"

"Yeah?"

Taichi propped himself on his elbow and met Yamato's sleepy, indigo stare from above. "I'm going to make you the kind of 'wow – who believed this is even possible' happy."

Matching the determination that peered down at him, Yamato picked a hand sanitizer from his drawer. He cleaned up the fingers that recently went up Taichi's arse, before using them to caress Taichi's cheek.

"I know you will." He smacked Taichi on the head. "And stop saying embarrassing things with a serious tone!"

Two big brown eyes closed on his delicate face when Taichi hugged all the blankets and Yamato had to take a moment to appreciate the magnitudes of sheer cuteness that was Taichi in a blanket burrito. Taichi rolled onto Yamato's chest and turned himself into a cocoon while Yamato secured him in a hug. Together they formed an igloo of bedsheets.

"Yama?"

"Yama _to_. What?"

"Can we make daifuku mochi over the weekend?"

"You mean, can _I_ make mochi for _you_?"

"Please?"

Yamato grunted. "They take a forever and a half to make."

Taichi pouted.

Yamato sighed.

"Next weekend, if you buy me adzuki beans and mochiko, I'll make you mochi, alright?"

Yamato could feel Taichi's lips spread sideways against his ribs, and a cold nose buried itself in his armpit.

"Thank you, Yama!"

"Yama _to_."

At night, finding something to fill the moments between orgasms, biding their time till another wave of lust had drowned them, Yamato woke Taichi up.

"Take your dick out of me and let's go."

Yamato dragged him down to the neigbourhood's playground. Sometimes, he just wanted to grab Taichi and run away; live life on the road.

The soporific hum of cicadae greeted them along with the view of the bay. The waters were still enough to allow for a moon-path to form and go on and on till it disappeared behind the line where the ocean kissed the sky.

They talked about nothing really, about stupid things, and about the future.

Summer will be over soon and they are the only ones who feel it.

"Reality is fixed, but you can always change your mind," Yamato said and Taichi thought he understood what he meant.

"I guess. It's good to have plans, know who you are, and know where you're heading. But alsoto learn to let go, change routes, and not let who you are stop you from becoming who you can be."

"We don't have time to get old, though."

They laughed quietly into the dark.

Yamato took his T-shirt and Joggers off and, before Taichi got to ask, undressed him too, discarding their clothes till they wore nothing but skin and walked with their bare feet.

"Yamato-"

"Taichi, no one in this dead-arsed place is gonna see us. Everyone here gets to bed by 10 PM. And if anyone did see your naked arse, they ain't gonna care – it's a dead city. No one cares about strangers in the dark." And no one would interrupt this delicate, private moment between them.

Yamato moved towards the swing set, rewarding Taichi with the view of his soft backside. Did he want to be taken again, already? "Yamato, I'm sore…" Taichi caught up to him and threw his arms around Yamato's waist. His hand slipped into Yamato's bum and Taichi tapped his finger against Yamato's muscled ring. "… And your pooper's swollen. Let's lay off for a bit."

"Not everything's about sex," Yamato said, tone soft but a bit miffed. "… sometimes, we just need to be naked..."

Taichi let him go and bent down to pick up the shirt he was deprived of. He threw it over the swing adjacent to the one Yamato had occupied to avoid getting splinters up his arse, and parked his rack on it. For a while, they sat in relative quiet with only Yamato's whistling breaking the stillness, giving the swings momentum with their toes.

"Come here," Taichi cooed, reaching his hand for Yamato to take. When Yamato was near, Taichi found his waist and pulled Yamato on top of him, to the subtle complaints of the wooden plank under them.

Yamato squeezed Taichi's warm sides, feeling comforted when he tucked his head under Taichi's chin and was filled with his warm scent.

Languorously, their fingers traced each other's bodies, studying anew what they already knew, but wouldn't stop wanting. Taicihi's hands dropped under Yamato's bum, to where his longest scars were. Taicihi's indexes travelled their length as though they were yet another set of train tracks going nowhere. He wanted to remember Yamato's shapes – each and every one.

Taichi's eyes showed emotions all the time. Yamato read them clearly and was able to give a name to each. He grabbed Taichi's face and landed small, open mouthed kisses against his warm lips. Taichi's fingers climbed the steps of Yamato's vertebrae into his hair. He prodded Yamato's mouth, begging him to part his lips and let Taichi in, but every time Taichi tried getting inside him, Yamato pulled back and nuzzled their noses gently together.

"What's with you today…?" Taichi hugged him, smoothed Yamato's hair down, and kissed his ear.

"Don't tell…" Yamato breezed a peck on Taichi's lips. "This means the world to me. Don't get me wrong, the sex is amazing, but I feel so much more when you look at me or smile at me or hold hands with me… or just when you're with me. There's so much I want to give you… so… just… come find me."

Taichi didn't know what to say, but it was alright since he didn't have to. He planted his chin on Yamato's shoulder and smelled the city mixing in the scent of Yamato's scalp.

Rocking gently, loving wildly, they sat on the swing naked, staring at each other but also unseeingly into the distance, where tomorrow was becoming today as the door into summer was closing. Though Taichi was always summer for Yamato; summer and freedom.

It lasted for hours.

When the street lamps went out – that short instance when the world is still with pre-dawn blue – Yamato itched. "I think I'm gonna get a new tattoo."

Taichi laughed. "Bet Victor will have an episode. Of what?"

"Something you can only see when my trousers come off. A private one. Maybe little stars here," he jabbed his finger at the intersection where the blessed line of his sex triangle met his hips and lower pelvic bones, on the spot connecting it to his inner thigs. "You'll be the only one who'll see it. Get a bit of entertainment when you go down on me. Will you like that?"

"Me?" Taichi slapped Yamato's arse. "Fuck yes. But not your future bosses. What do you intend to do on check-up days?"

"I already have one, so it's too late for thinking this over. Besides, companies don't strip you naked and give you an enema. If a suit can hide it, it's fine." Yamato spat a big, white blob to the side. "Not that I have the intention of working under some hundred year old prune with a broomstick up their rectum."

"I reckon it's good tattoos are worth the trouble for you. Otherwise I'd say you're barking mad."

"Scars are tattoos that tell where we've been. Tattoos are scars that tell who we are."

The whistles of grasshoppers and the cicadas were dying down.

Taichi wanted to see the sunrise. He wanted to own that moment when the moon and the stars were still out, but the sun was lapping at the horizon as well. Seeing them all together could be very nice.

Yamato sat cocooned in his lap, encircling Taichi's waist with all his limbs like a caterpillar around a stalk, melding intimately together. His chest heaved against Taichi's. He smelled Taichi's rhythmical breathing, heard his own heart beat against Taichi's and felt them both resonate through his rib-cage. It was one of Yamato's favourite sounds. Maybe he should have Jyou record it and insert it into a song.

"I just love feeling you alive," he thought and realised he said it aloud after the sounds were already out.

"You're," Taichi corrected.

"No – I mean I love feeling life go through you. And don't correct my grammar, arsehole." Yamato inhaled the fresh morning air so fast it cut his throat. "… at any moment, I feel like I'm gonna wake up alone and realise this was just a very vivid dream. It will break me…"

Taichi tickled Yamato's foot and caught Yamato before he fell down from kicking around. "I'm not going anywhere. If you wake up alone, it's just because I'm making you tea in the kitchen," he said and dragged his hands up Yamato's thighs, securing them around his torso.

"Hold me like you want to choke me."

Taichi tightened his hug, scalding Yamato's waist with the pattern Taichi's muscles underlined in his forearms. The back of his loose fist slowly moved up and down Yamato's skin.

"Tell me you love me, Taichi."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

One of the best aspects of their relationship, at least for Yamato, was that there was no semblance of "they were meant for each other" or any washed up shit like that. Not at all. This was natural. They were together because _they_ wanted to. Because _they_ made their _own_ choices about _their_ lives and that was so much more powerful than having anything decided for them.

In this humongous world, where they were free to go anywhere – they _chose_ to go to each other. How incredible is that?

Time hung, suspended between them, and the end – it stayed their own.

"It's starting." Taichi looked up at the brightening sky, smiling.

Yamato did the best thing a person can do when there is nothing to be said – said nothing at all.


	20. Chapter 20

h2span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Credits/span/h2  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The songs appearing in this work of fanfiction are:/span/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 1:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Wicked Game – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chris Isaak/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Tiptoe Through the Tulips/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" –Tiny Tim/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Shit List/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – L7/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Closer – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"NIN/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"We Are the Champions/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" - Queen/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Iron Man – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Black Sabbath/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 2:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Shiny, Happy People – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"R.E.M/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Hell Broke Luce /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"- Tom Waits/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 3:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Land of Confusion – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Genesis/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Beautiful Madness – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"BellX1/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 4:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Mommy, can I go and kill tonight?/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – Misfits/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Consoler of the Lonely/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – The Raconteurs/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Skin of the Night/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – M83/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 5:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Friday, I'm in love/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – The Cure/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Hey Girl – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Dashboard confessional/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Cherry Bomb/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – Joan Jett/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Toccata and Fugue/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – Johann Sebastian Bach/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"YYZ/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – Rush/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Now I Wanna Be Your Dog – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Iggy Pop/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 7:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Where is my mind? – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Pixies/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 8:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Angelfuck – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Misfits/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 9:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"God Thinks – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Voltaire/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 10:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Sunshiny Milk – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Nostalghia /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Sex and Violence – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The Exploited/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"I Touch Myself/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – The Genitorturers/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Pleasure Drive/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – The Jezebels/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Isolated/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – Chiasm/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Trip Like I Do/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" - The Crystal Method/ feat. Filter/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 11:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Inner Silence – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Anathema /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Highway of Endless Dreams – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"M83/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Feel the Silence/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – Goo Goo Dolls/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"All is Violent, All is Bright/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – God is an Astronout./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Light my Fire/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – The Doors/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Procession of Dead Clowns – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Blut Ous Nord/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Schizophrenia – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chaosophia/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 12:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Uzbekistan – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Sound of Animals Talking/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"*Album: strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"Anti-Pop – /strongPrimus/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 13:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"We're in This Together Now – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"NIN/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Love Out Of Lust - /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Lykke Listrong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;" /strong/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Cry Little Sister/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – Gerard McMann/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Para/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – Calexico/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"How Soon is Now/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – The Smith's/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"I'm Not Calling You a Liar/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – Florence the Machine/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Black/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – Pearl Jam/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Diamonds in the Rust/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – Joan Baez/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chelsea Hotel/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – Leonard Cohen/span/p  
h1 style="margin-top: 0in; line-height: normal; background: white;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; font-weight: normal;" /span/h1  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 14:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"All I Want is You – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"U2/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Lost Stars/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – Keira Knightley/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 15:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Still Alive/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – Lisa Miskovsky/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 16:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chasing Cars/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – Snow Patrol/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Psychotherapy/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" – The Jezebels/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 17:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Everybody wants to rule the world /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"– Tears For Fears/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Chapter 18:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Sirens – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Pearl Jam/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Imitation of life –/span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" R.E.M/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"I Fink You're Freaky – /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Die Antwood/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"uspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Epilogue:/span/u/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"For Me…/ Boku Ni Totte… - /span/strongspan lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Knife of Day/ /spanspan lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #545454; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Junxix and Hosoya Shimase/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"POPETC/span/strong span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #545454; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"– Is/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Heaven is Here/span/strong span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #545454; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"– Dashboard Confessional /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #545454; background: white; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The following works and/ or authors inspired aspects of this work of fiction: Sundome, Cut, Nobi Nobita/span/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"A huge and special thanks goes to the following people for their support and major contribution: first and foremost to my editor, the tallest Leprechaun in the World, for sitting well into the small hours of the night, editing, reviewing, passing constructive criticism, making this so much better that it was before and most importantly – for being my best friend. To Jokessho, for being the best beta, for her wise editorial advices, for her soothing words and experience, and for practically holding my hand all throughout the process of posting this fic. To Cyg50, for her friendship, comradery, thoughtful reviews, clever ideas and countless hours of Tayama HCs. For my ex-boyfriend, for being such a fantastic bass player who thaught me how to play myself and helped me with any other bass-related tidbit in this fic and who delivered a couple of the witty lines in this story. For GNeko for her story-telling insights. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanFor Jordan, who was here from the start and for Victor who I will never see again./span/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/strong/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"And a special and huge thank you – for style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanFor anyone who read this fic regardless of reviews. You are all my blessing. /span/strong/p 


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